Evagoras Evagorou will return to Las Vegas for the final table of the WSOP Main Event, where he has earned a spot among the final nine players chasing the $10 million grand prize.
But first, he had to go back to work.
"I am an optician. I have had a business in Nicosia for 22 years. After Day 8, I came back to Cyprus, and I was working."
Craig Tapscott caught up with Evagorou while he was back home, where he runs his eye care business out of the country's capital on the Greek side of the divided Mediterranean island.
Evagorou is the first player from Cyprus to qualify for the WSOP Main Event final table, and, fittingly, he was one of the first players to start spreading games on the island more than a decade ago. He had picked up poker online while spending time abroad, and he returned in 2004 to help build the country's live poker scene.
"We began with some other friends, a Greek community. We started a lot of the poker in Cyprus. I was one of the first guys who really loved the game and wanted to find players and make games. I was organizing the games and the tournaments."
Evagoros Evagoru Final Table Tale of the Tape
- Chips: 22,500,000 (9/9)
- Country: Cyprus
- Career earnings: $1,253,488
Building bridges
The northern part of Cyprus is Turkish, and the two are divided by a United Nations buffer zone. It's a dispute that goes back to the Ottoman Empire, but poker is a modern slice of common ground.
"[Northern Cyprus] has a lot of casinos and they have a lot of poker."
Meanwhile, Greek Cyprus has a lot of poker players. It's a strong base for a Northern Cyprus venue like Merit Diamond, where the EPT, WPT, and WSOP have all held tournaments in recent years. Evagorou is one of the originals of that scene, and he played a key role in building the Cyprus poker community.
"I was semi-professional until 2011-12. [Northern Cypriots] were the managers, and we were helping them from the Greek side to make the games and to start the tournaments. I was playing a lot, and I was playing mostly cash games. I played so many hours, and I loved the game so, so much."
Evagoras Evagorou day-by-day chip counts
- Day 1D - 83,000
- Day 2D - 198,000
- Day 3 - 546,000
- Day 4 - 1,565,000
- Day 5 - 2,260,000
- Day 6 - 7,475,000
- Day 7 - 38,200,000
- Day 8 - 22,500,000
'I know my type of player'
Now, years later, Evagorou is outfitting the island with eyewear, and he's no longer putting in long hours at the cash tables. "I live a healthier life. I have grown up more now. I have my family, my daughter, and my dog here. I like to have a calm way of life. It's the best."
But poker wasn't done with him. He now finds himself as the first Cypriot to make the WSOP Main Event final table, and that combination of calm and cool may have been the recipe that lifted him to the final nine.
Evagorou is playing in the WSOP Main Event for the first time, but that doesn't matter, he said, because he has always been prepared for this tournament.
"This was the tournament that I was dreaming of going to play. I knew that because I know my type of player. I am very good in deep tournaments. Very, very good. In all the deep tournaments I have played, I make the money."
Evagorou only plays this type of deepstack tournament. It's his lane, and he will need to lean on the experience as the shortest stack at the table. "I know how to navigate better in these situations because I play very deep cash games."
He's also primed for the bright lights of ESPN. "Every time I have played on TV tables, I am very calm, for some reason. I'm patient, I can wait, I speak to the players. In the deep tournaments, I am good, I'm really good. This is the best tournament I have ever played."
It's the perfect blend of soft skills for his WSOP Main Event goals. Evagorou knows he has some work to do with the short stack, but he has already made history, and his mission to build a thriving poker community in Cyprus has taken another big step.
"It's a small country. We have some good players and people who love the game, and they want to move forward and try their skills in Vegas. This gave them good motivation, and next year a lot of Greek Cypriots will come to Vegas. I inspired a lot of people."
