GGPoker’s Third Online Poker Millionaires Episode Follows Denys Chufarin
The Ukrainian pro’s story runs from law and wartime relocation to streaming, rakeback and a GGMillion$ win.
GGPoker’s Online Poker Millionaires has reached its third episode, and this installment focuses on Denys Chufarin, the Ukrainian pro whose path runs from law to online poker and streaming. The series launched last November on GGPoker’s YouTube channel with POKERfilms, and each episode has followed a different high-stakes player through their routine, mindset and drive.
The earlier episodes featured Alex Theologis and Kelvin Kerber, so Chufarin’s story is the latest turn in a format built around one player at a time. The third episode was directed and edited by Michael Bailey, with narration by Emma Topping.
According to PokerStake, Chufarin learned poker at his grandmother’s hip before qualifying as a lawyer and starting at small stakes. He says he found he could win in the formats he played, and his journey now includes the line, ‘This is not just a career, this is a life,’ along with the claim that he ‘earned $4 million from [depositing] $65.’
The episode also revisits how Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed things for him. Chufarin said becoming a father made him think about safety differently, and he and his family went to Thailand for six months before stretching the stay to 16 months.
From there, they moved to British Columbia so he could keep playing against the toughest opponents and keep winning. He is now based there permanently and has played and streamed ever since, calling it ‘the best job in the world’ and saying poker gives him ‘freedom of will and freedom of thought.’
Streaming has a direct payoff through GGPoker’s streamer model, which pays players back for the content they create. Chufarin said he made $4,500 in total rakeback in one week, and the episode says adding tournaments to his schedule made a big difference because he sees them as about winning, the emotion and the moment.
One of the headline moments is his GGMillion$ victory. The episode says he won the weekly $10,000-entry event, which he called the biggest $10k online tournament in the world and said he never imagined he could win.
It closes with his sixth-place finish in the $1,500-entry GG World Championship, where 7,309 players entered, just under $1.4 million was up top, and he sold 14% to viewers through GGPoker before banking $379,801. Poker.org’s earlier coverage of the same episode had already pointed to his move after the invasion, his almost $200,000 online balance and his habit of spending around $50,000 a day on buy-ins.
