The 2016 WSOP November Nine: Seat 2, Vojtech Ruzicka

Each week leading into the World Series of Poker final table we’ll profile one player who will be vying for the championship. Our profiles are sponsored by Advanced Poker Training, one of the world’s top poker training sites. At AdvancedPokerTraining.com you can play up to 500 hands per hour of full-ring, six-max, sit-n-go, or full MTTs against thousands of intelligent computerized opponents, with instant advice, weekly training plans, and much more. It’s the fastest way to ignite your game!

Vojtech Ruzicka was having a terrible summer.

Playing a full schedule at the 2016 World Series of Poker, the professional player from the Czech Republic had managed to tally just $5,000 in winnings and was deep in the hole. Then, the Main Event happened.

Now, he’s $1 million richer, and it came just in time.

“I didn’t expect it,” he said with a laugh in an interview with Remko Rinkema. “It not only saved my summer, but it’s the biggest thing to happen in my poker life. I’m so grateful.”

But who is Vojtech Ruzicka and where did he come from? Unlike the last entrant in the November Nine profile series here on PokerNews, he’s a little farther from the spotlight, a lot less known to the average poker fan.

“I’m quite boring,” he assured PokerNews’ Sarah Herring in an interview, rattling off a typical list of young male poker player interests: good food, golfing, watching sports – he’s an especially big NBA fan – and gambling with his friends.

As for his poker career, it began about eight years ago for the now-30-year-old. He was studying math in college when he discovered the game and started grinding online.

“Everything went my way,” he said of that time period.

He won his first $50,000 and never looked back, quitting school and embarking on the poker journey that’s taken him where is today, on the precipice of perhaps an $8 million jackpot.

After spiking his initial roll online, Ruzicka broke through in a big way in the 2011 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event. There, as“Vojta_R”, he finished runner-up to Thomas “Kallllle” Pedersen for $710,000 in a field of 1,627.

Then, he branched out into the live arena with a freshly minted sponsorship from PokerStrategy.com. He first hit the European scene, firing away on the European Poker Tour and other events, such as when he took down the German Championship of Poker in early 2012 for $161,146.

A tantalizing WSOP followed, in which Ruzicka made a habit of running deep but falling just shy of the big score, with four top-60 runs. The following February, he shipped the biggest live score of his life aside from his yet-to-be-determined 2016 Main Event cash. It came in the …

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