Aleksey Ivanov: I Wanted To Win the Gladiator For a Long Time

Russian poker player Aleksey Ivanov learned about the Legend of the Week promotion via a post on social media and did a little research. Upon discovering which Daily Legends were eligible for the value-packed promotion, he set about trying to take down Leaderboard 5, the $55 buy-in level.

Ivanov set his sights on winning the $55 buy-in Gladiator, a tournament he wanted to win for some time. He managed to achieve his goal, and the victory helped him top Leaderboard 5 and get his hands on $320, $550, and $1,100 tournament tickets.

The partypoker blog caught up with Ivanov and asked him about his poker life and his impressive victory.

“My name is Aleksey, I live in Russia, and I have been actively playing poker for the last six years. I discovered poker around ten years ago while studying at university. Poker for me is both a job and a hobby.”

“I found out about the Legend of the Week promotion by pure chance. I saw on a Telegram channel that a player’s followers had won tickets for earning points on various leaderboards. I didn’t think about winning it at first because I do not play many poker tournaments at partypoker usually.”

Despite not usually getting his MTT grind on at partypoker, Aleksey made it his mission to take down the Gladiator, one of the partypoker Daily Legend tournaments that he does frequent thanks to its chunky top prize.

“I registered for several tournaments on Monday and managed to win the Gladiator PKO for around $6,000. To be honest, I have wanted to win this particular tournament for a long time because I have played it almost every session for over a year and only made it to the final table a couple of times. After winning, I only played seven or eight more tournaments because I was grinding cash games. I’d forgotten about the leaderboard, so it was a big surprise for me that I took first place and won!”

Aleksey is waiting until the Irish Poker Masters concludes so he can use his $320, $550, and $1,100 tournament tickets, but he promises to become a more familiar face in our Daily Legends tournaments which he says are “attractive.” Of course, you are bound to see him in the Gladiator again.

“The Gladiator is definitely my favourite Daily Legends tournament, doubly so after winning the leaderboard!”