Apparently, the poker community has it wrong and they’re both a lot different from what their public image would suggest.
Today saw the start of the $3,500 buy-in, $2 million GTD WPT Cyprus Championship at the Chamada Prestige Hotel & Casino.
Plenty of well-known faces were present at the casino but none more so than the pair of characters who had the poker media scribbling for much of the WSOP 2025.
Would they behave? Matt Savage was adamant that they would, and after spending 90 minutes with Kabrhel and a couple of hours with Kassouf, he thinks we’ve got them all wrong.
I must really be into pain, 90 minutes with @MartinKabrhell and now 2 hours with @WilliamKassouf.
Analysis: Both are way more pleasant than they appear at the poker table. pic.twitter.com/iA6c37LfW6
— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) August 12, 2025
Of course, this scenario is common with characters we know from our screens and newspapers; people really do tend to say that whoever is much nicer than they expected when they meet them, on average.
Phil Hellmuth upsets many with his frequent outbursts but those who really know him swear that he is the nicest person you could ever meet away from poker.
Or in this case, VERY different
— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) August 13, 2025
Not everybody was believing Savage, though. There were plenty of naysayers saying they don’t care what they’re like behind closed doors; they only care about the negative interactions at the poker table.
The first hour I spent explaining why he wouldn’t be able to act like a jackass here at @WPT Cyprus.
— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) August 13, 2025
We can only hope that Will Kassouf has learned his lesson and will not be repeating any of the behaviour that soured the final days of the WSOP 2025 Main Event.
Alexsandr Pak Leads the Way on Day 1a
It was Uzbekistan’s Aleksandr Pak who bagged up the biggest stack at the end of play on Day 1a, the first of three starting flights.
There were 283 entries in the pot after eight hours of play, and 127 players survived to make it through to Day 2.
Pak ended the day with 379,000 chips, closely followed by Turkey’s Furkan Yavuz (358,500).
Omar Lakhdari (169,000), winner of WPT Prime Cyprus, and WPT Prime Paris champion Hugues Girard (139,000) also made it through to Day 2.
WPT Commentator Tony Dunst was another well-known face who made it through today, telling the media that his table was extremely active.
WPT Global Ambassador Romulo Dorea was the winner of what was probably the hand of the day after finding himself in a four-way all-in situation.
Holding J♥ J♦, Dorea had to deal with Chiboub Abdelmajid’s A♦ K♠, Ingles Garcia’s Q♥ Q♣, and the 10♠ 10♣ of Andreas Christodolou.
When the board ran out 9♠ 7♠ 2♣ K♣, it looked like it was all over, but the J♠ river handed Dorea a pot of 278 big blinds and he ended the day seventh in chips.
Incredibly, there was another four-way all-in later in the night, just before bagging up time.
Adrian Govea Quevedo found himself staring a late exit in the face with A♠ Q♠. He was up against Q♥ Q♣ A♥ K♣ and 6♠ 6♣.
But the board came down K♥ J♣ 10♣ 10♦ J♥ and Quevedo picked up a pot of 18 big blinds. Furkan Yavuz’s ace-king picked up the much bigger side pot of 351 big blinds.
