Most poker players have dreamed about a scenario in their heads hundreds or thousands of times while playing small buy-in tournaments or home games with their friends. It’s deep into a big buy-in tournament, two players have already gone all in and you look down at 
in your hand.
That’s exactly how things played out for Krasimir Yankov Saturday, on Day 4 of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
It started quietly enough. With just nine big blinds left, WPT Champions Club member Asher Conniff shoved all in for 675,000 with 
from UTG+1. It folded around to Rania Nasreddine on the button. Having previously doubled up through Conniff with 
vs. Conniff’s , Nasreddine saw an opportunity to finish the job, and pushed all in from the cutoff for 3.2 million. This time, however, she was behind, holding 
. Having Conniff comfortably outstacked, Nasreddine had a buffer and could stand to lose the pot and still have a chance to spin back up if she didn’t come from behind.
That was, of course, until Yankov found in the big blind, and called.
There was still the runout to come, but it couldn’t have come out much cleaner for Yankov. The 
flop offered no help to the two trailing hands, and the 
turn gave Yankov a flush draw – reducing both Conniff and Nasreddine to one out apiece. The 
river finished the job, and put Krasimir up to 12.7 million chips with 71 players left.
Nasreddine did get a nice consolation prize, however, as she and Conniff were eliminated on opposite sides of a pay jump. By virtue of starting the hand with more chips, Nasreddine walked away with $53,200 for 72nd place and Conniff got $46,650 for 73rd – a difference of $6,550, a bump of more than 10 percent.
As for Yankov, the Bulgarian native, he now has chips to make a major run in the WPT World Championship. He’s previously shown a knack for navigating big fields as well. In 2018, he finished 3rd in the WSOP Europe main event for $546,231 and 64th in the WSOP main event in Las Vegas for $108,745.