Alexander “joiso” Kostritsyn is a young Russian poker professional, born and raised in a small town outside Moscow. He was introduced to poker through a community of Starcraft players.
Even though Alex quickly became a winning player at small stakes, he did not take the game too seriously, his approach changed when his parents found themselves in rough financial shape, and his mother put her faith and hard earned money into Alex and his game. When looking at it in retrospect,
there is no doubt that she made the right decision.
Alex really made a name for himself on the live poker circuit in 2008, when it looked like he came out of nowhere and won the Aussie Millions Main Event and $1,450,396, Alex eliminated no other than Erik Seidel in the last hand of the tournament. But that is not his only live poker achievement, he cashed in no fewer than 6 events in the 2008 WSOP, in Hold 'em, Omaha and 7-Card Stud. In 2009, he returned to the Aussie Millions and won the $10,000 HORSE event to pocket a $67,485 prize. Alexander has won more than $4,4 million live and online from tournaments alone.
Kostritsyn plays several variations of poker online at the highest stakes.
One of the most interesting stories concerning Kostritsyn is the one of the bet which he made with his friends who complained that because of the increasingly tight competition they found it difficult to make any headway at the lower limits. The bet was about him turning a $1,000 bankroll into a $100k one, within a week. Sure enough, he got busy and within a day he made enough to buy into the $1k Monday. He then proceeded to win the event, pocketing $89,000 at one fell swoop, nearly completing the challenge with 6 days remaining. With the 89k mark already reached the remaining $11k was child’s play for the experienced professional to obtain.