Aleksandr Shevliakov: Exclusive Interview About EPT Monte Carlo & Future Plans

— PokerNews journalists called you a "37-year-old amateur IT guy" in their article. How accurate is this definition? Or have you really earned enough and are playing for the soul?

– That's right. In 2021, I finished cash and switched to tournaments for fun. I play once a week, on Sundays. It's far from professional play.

— Did you really qualify for the winning EPT via satellite?

– Technically, yes, but that was only the first entry, the second bullet was already for cash. PokerStars loves beautiful stories about satellites. But who are we to judge them (laughs ).

— Let's discuss the much-talked-about deal with AK. You received a lot of support in our community — and how do you like the response from the international community? Did any of the players write to you?

– No, no one wrote. It seems like the English-speaking community is divided into two camps: one half thinks it was angle, and the other half thinks I really made a mistake. Some foreign player wrote that I should be banned from EPT for a year. Insane!

Even before I made the call, I realized how it all looked from the outside. There was a high probability that he would push and I would be accused of playing dirty. That's why I apologized in advance.

I can understand Jamil and those who judge me.

I only disagree with the argument about "bet size out loud" – one guy wrote on Twitter that before that I always put chips in silently. PokerNews journalists watched the fifth day of the EPT and conducted their own investigation: it turned out that out of forty hands I voiced the bet size seven times. There was an indicative spot where I opened from SB to BB with the same size and also out loud.

— Does this story still bother you?

– It was spinning in my head during the final and then for a couple of days, but now it’s gone.

— Sam Greenwood dedicated a separate blog post to the hand. He studies how optimal Jamil's play was from a theoretical perspective. In a vacuum, the push was positive, but if we allow even 10-20% of angle shooting, it becomes super-minus. How would you have played in his place?

- If I had enough time to think, I would have definitely called. But I also understand why he pushed.

There are 10-15 people in the world that everyone knows and about whom you can be absolutely sure that they will never mess up in such a spot at the final table. And if the player is relatively unknown (and I was definitely that for him), it is better to include the probability of an angle shoot and calmly press the call.

Don't forget what the final table lineup was at that point; it's not like the push was printing money. And Jamil underestimated my range: somewhere on the internet they wrote that I would open polarly, but in fact my range was linear in that spot. And I would have called the push wider, because I immediately realized that he correctly perceived my sizing as a mistake and would expand.

— There was a small scandal before your hand when you stopped putting cards on the sensor after Boris and Mariusz's actions. Didn't you think about calling the floor right away? [Ed. – Boris Angelov and Mariusz Goliński regularly approached their fans on the fifth day to watch the showdowns of the previous hands.]

– In fact, the decision was spontaneous, it’s not like I spent the whole day thinking about what to do in such situations. But after the conversation, the tournament director decided everything pretty quickly — respect!

— How do you generally rate the quality of organization and compliance with the rules at EPT?

– Super! Everything is perfect.

— We are talking to you right after Triton. Where is it more comfortable to play?

– It’s nicer at Triton. Firstly, there are far fewer people, no crowds of thousands like at, say, the WSOP. Secondly, there are free “goodies”: drinks, food. At EPT, as everyone now knows, I paid for tea!

— And what about the player fields?

– The EPT main event field is, of course, better. But in general, the high rollers at the conditional stage in Prague are worse than at Triton.

— You've been playing high stakes live events for a long time now: in your blog on GipsyTeam you sold shares in both the WSOP and the 10k in Aria. Where is the best balance of all factors: field, comfort, price?

– Triton in Jeju. Many players from Asia come there. They can’t be called fish, but they are still technically weaker. But not all Tritons are equally good — for example, in terms of the “regular-amateur” ratio, the Montenegrin stage is worse.

— You blogged on the Russian GipsyTeam forum until 2014, then abandoned it. What were you doing, playing cash online?

– Yes, and sometimes tournaments. Now all these attempts can be called "fish play". At that time, I didn't understand anything at all. Then, MTT regs were generally worse, but there were fewer opportunities to improve the game. It would have been better if I had only sat in cash, although it still gave me some experience.

— You had quite a diverse early career: from cash to tournaments. Can you tell us more about where and what you played?

– There were a lot of rooms and different games. I played everything I could. The peak of my career was at the end of 2020, when Ben Affleck came to WPN. I also went to GG, but there was less play there than, for example, in 2023.

— Are you currently thinking about returning to high stakes cash?

– There is nowhere to return to. It is no longer there (laughs ). I saw statistics on how many top regs played in 2025: no one even got 80,000 hands. This certainly does not give the anticipation that makes you want to return.

Age also plays a role: poker is very exhausting. A broken routine, stress. I wouldn't want to do it intensively my whole life.

— Have you looked at short deck or Omaha?

– When they first gained popularity, in 2017-18. I played less than 1,000 hands of Omaha, played 6+ for a month, won $10k and gave up. There was a lot of action in Hold'em.

Maybe it was a mistake. As far as I know, PLO is more fun than NL these days.

— You came to GipsyTeam from PokerStrategy, and you can find many old names in your blog. Do you keep in touch with people you met on both forums?

– I even communicate closely with some of them. And I only met some of them this year, for example, Artem oSpiel. It’s funny that we walked hand in hand throughout our careers and crossed paths at tables almost every day, but we only met in person now.

— Artem only went public last year, when he and Avrora commented on Triton.

- Yes, before that everyone knew him, but few people saw him.

— How actively do you follow the community and the news now?

– I still open GipsyTeam every week to read the main news, but more out of habit.

— Why did you stop writing completely after 2014?

– I don’t even know. At that point, I already had a poker circle of friends. PokerStrategy died, discussions of hands on GT began to fade, people began to write less in blogs, especially in the NL400+ section.

A couple of years later solvers appeared, and it seemed to me that there was even less sense in discussing hands. I thought that this was the holy grail of poker. I was wrong!

— Why not?

– It is impossible to copy the solver game entirely. Only some adherents of this style at high stakes can repeat the solver very well. Relative to even an ideal GTO, a good exploit game will bring more money in the long run.

Solver simply destroyed my game for about a year – I started playing at zero and then it took me a long time to get out of this hole. I started taking trainings and realized that trying to copy the solver was a mistake.

Many tournament players still think that blindly copying GTOWizard will bring good results. But judging by the results of FiatLab and its alumni, GTO is the worst thing in poker. Regs from there have very good results, although they "play with their hearts".

— If you were faced with the task of improving your skill right now, what would you do?

– If we're talking about tournaments, I'd join FiatLab. This is not an advertisement, I don't even know anyone from there. In cash, I'd try to find closed games and good fields, because otherwise everything is very sad now.

— Between 2015 and 2019, when you left the forum, did the field change much?

– Yes, the understanding has changed. There are fewer decisions "by gut feeling", more are based on theory. But the best results were still shown by those who did not blindly copy GTO, like Invoker or Stefan.

From the Russian community, Artem oSpiel can be singled out, who always tried to play close to theory and showed good results. But the person simply has an IQ of 180+, this is a special case that is inaccessible to the average player. It is much easier for the average player to learn an exploit.

— Which Russian-speaking regulars are the most unpleasant at the table, can you name the top 3?

– Obviously Stefan. Also 1nvoker and oSpiel. It's clear that I forgot a million more people: forhayley and fish2013 are also not the most pleasant opponents. Or Trueteller . We played caps with him in 2011, there were legends there, for example, Sergey " vedevas " Lebedev.

— What were your greatest achievements or, on the contrary, failures in your career?

– I don’t want to mention any numbers, but there were never any big drops, 10-20 buy-ins at most. The saddest year was 2016, which I played at zero. And the biggest achievement is the recent victory at EPT.

— Do you have any plans for the future in poker?

– I'll go to the WSOP, I don't know what to do next. I'll probably go to the EPT a couple of times a year. I'm not sure I'll play even 30 Sundays a year online. I have no desire to play cash, unless I'm invited to a sweet, high stakes, honest game, but that's very unlikely.

— Have you ever played high stakes live cash games?

– Cash in Sochi and Vegas, but not very high stakes, maximum NL10k. Very boring! In tournaments, you can look at the scoreboard, see the payout for the top 1 and figure out what you'll spend the money on. Cash lacks this.

— What will you spend the million from EPT on?

– Most likely to buy real estate in Slovenia. The prices here are quite unpleasant compared to the rest of Europe, so it will almost certainly be a house.

— Life is hard in Europe! Can you tell us what you do besides poker?

– I wouldn’t like to go into details. Let’s just say I’m trying to gain an advantage in traditional and crypto markets.

— Is there anything that could motivate you to return to the blog and write posts?

– Good question. I have been tempted to write many times over the last ten years, but that is more of an ego thing. Maybe I will come back when I am 60 and need to write my memoirs!