Andrey Zaichenko’s biography

Andrey Zaichenko is one of the most famous and successful poker players of Russia. During his entire poker career, Zaichenko won about $3 500 000 in the live events and about 2 million in online poker. The main achievement of the player is 4 victories at WCOOP and WSOP gold bracelet.  

Zaichenko was born in Moscow in 1978. His passion to cards appeared in his family. However, he started to play poker only at the university. While studying at Moscow State University, Andrey played poker with other students in order to improve his financial situation.

At that time, poker was no more than a hobby for Zaichenko. After graduating from the University, he began to work in IT company.

Andrei started to play poker seriously in 2007 after the quitting his job. Zaichenko had much more free time, so he decided to participate in the live events in addition to online poker.

The Russian player demonstrated his first big winning in 2007 at World Headsup Poker Championship, where he took the first place in the event for €1 000 and won €31 000 ($42 000). In the same year, Andrey earned $17 000 at EPT in Barcelona and took the 42nd place.

In 2008, Zaichenko took part at WSOP for the first time. He managed to get into prizes in the four WSOP tournaments, and in one of the tournament he got to the final table and won $112 000.

In 2016, the Russian player won his first gold bracelet at WSOP. Zaichenko got this award for winning in 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball tournament for $1 500 (+ $118 000). The poker player met with US player Jameson Painter in a heads-up, who earned $73 000 for the second place.

Zaichenko won the largest prize money in the live event in 2014, when he became the champion of EPT high roller tournament in Prague. The first place brought him almost half a million euros or $607 000.

The start of player’s professional career coincided with the rapid development of online poker. His play on the Internet was very successful almost from the very beginning. In 2009, the Russian player took the 3rd place at WCOOP and won $65 000. The following year, he became the champion of this series in one of Omaha Hi-Lo tournaments.

The poker player’s participation in online tournaments in 2011 brought him $340 000 of prize money. In particular, he took the 3rd place in one of Full Tilt Poker tournaments and won PokerStars Sunday Million event. At WCOOP in 2011, Zaichenko also won a tidy sum – $300 000.

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Interesting facts about Andrey Zaichenko:

• He won 4 titles at WCOOP online championships at PokerStars.
• Andrey was a member of PokerDom professional team from 2015 to 2016.
• In 2007, Zaichenko left his job in order to be engaged professionally in poker.
• Andrey won events at SCOOP and FTOPS series.
• Zaichenko goes to WSOP every year since 2008, and he has never missed it.
• Andrey is married and he has two daughters (Anna and Anastasia). The name of his wife is Lubov (it means “Love” in English).
• Andrey has a lot of friends, who are his poker colleagues. In the interview for Cardmates in 2016, Zaichenko named Ilya Gorodetsky, Nikolay Losev and Vyacheslav Zhukov as his close friends.