Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Las Vegas, NV--The 2009 World Series of Poker $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em champion is Pete Vilandos, from Houston, TX. Vilandos is known as "Pete the Greek" because of his proud Greek heritage. His real full name is Panayote Vilandos.

Vilandos is a 69-year-old retiree who now plays poker professionally. He has been a fixture at major poker tournaments around the United States for more than 20 years.

Vialndos arrived as an immigrant from Greece at the age of 27. He had already earned a degree from the University of Athens but decided to go back to school in the United States. He graduated from the University of Houston and earned a degree in electrical engineering.

Vilandos was a businessman in Houston. He started playing poker for fun. It eventually became a passion to the point he travels around the tournament circuit as a regular.

Vilandos believes his engineering background, which uses math, is helpful to him at the poker table. Vilandos collected $607,276 for first place. He was also awarded his second WSOP gold bracelet.

With this victory, Vilandos became the 62^nd player in history to win exactly two gold bracelets. There are 115 players in WSOP who have won two gold bracelets, or more. According to the official records, Vilandos now has 2 wins, 8 final table appearances, and 17 in-the-money finishes at the WSOP.

Vilandos finished second in the $1,000 buy-in "Stimulus Special" No-Limit Hold'em tournament (Event 4). He earned $473,282 for that feat. Vilandos' previous gold bracelet victory came in 1995, in the Pot-Limit Hold'em event. There were 264 entries.

Vilandos has outlasted more players in his two big cashes than any other player at this year's WSOP.  He outlasted 6,010 players in Event 4 and conquered a field-size of 2,506 in this tournament. Hence, he has outlasted a combined 7,515 players in two No-Limit Hold'em events. This is comparable to Dan Harrington's feat in the 2003 and 2004 WSOP when he made back-to-back Main Event final tables.

Vilandos currently has $1,304,975 in WSOP winnings. With this cash, he became the 126^th player in WSOP history to cross the million-mark in career winnings.

Vilandos has won more money at this year's WSOP than all of his previous WSOP years combined.

-WSOP-