Yuval Bronshtein

Born in Israel but moving to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of five, Yuval Bronshtein dropped out of his studies at the University of Maryland in his senior year to pursue a life in poker. Despite facing some opposition from his parents – that Yuval describes as ‘very stereotypical Jewish parents . . . they want me to do something that helps society more and is more productive’ - the now-American resident had a bankroll of more than $200,000 to work with by the age of 23.

His road to accumulating this sum of money didn’t come easily – it was more than just a matter of having a fortunately deep tournament run. Two years on from a Bodog deposit that had whittled away, Bronshtein used his player points to purchase a ticket to a satellite event for the WSOP Main Event. He ended up winning a seat for the $10,000 buy-in tournament and headed to Vegas after borrowing money from his family to pay for the trip. He busted the tournament without cashing, and was down to his last $200 on the final night. He did what every degenerate gambler would do – jump into a $2/5 cash game with less than 50bb to play with. Yuval ended up spinning this money into $5,000, which he then used to pay back the money he owed his family and make a $500 deposit on Full Tilt. According to him, ‘the rest is basically history’.

A year on from this dramatic series of events, the Israeli headed to the WSOP once again in 2007. Still in school, Yuval ended up having a phenomenally successful trip that saw him reach the final table of the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event. Though he made a premature exit in third, Bronshtein earned a six-figure score for his efforts - $109,018 to be exact. Before the year played out, he had made another final table at a WSOPE event – this time at the £2,500 H. O. R. S. E. tournament in London where he sat alongside a line-up that included Jennifer Harman, Chris Ferguson and John Juanda. Although he exited in sixth on this occasion, his ability to compete with some of the strongest and most seasoned poker players around gave Bronshtein the confidence he needed to feel more seriously about pursuing the game as a career.

2008 was the year that he took the dive. Soon after winning back-to-back FTOPS titles on Full Tilt under the screenname ‘Yuvee04’ for over $170,000, Yuval sacked off education to have a crack at playing poker full-time. Now with more than $1,400,000 in live tournament earnings including a deep run in the 2012 WSOP Main Event that earned him $294,601, Bronshtein is a regular on the North American circuit and has garnered a reputation for being a H. O. R. S. E. specialist.