In front of camera: Mikhail Semin

It's about this stage of the World Series of Poker Main Event when you start to get an idea of who is still in, and who isn't. Faces you saw a few days ago deep in the Pavilion Room, or in some corner of Brasilia, are back again. Sometimes they're memorable for a baseball cap, or a hair style, or because, well, you work with them a lot.

If you follow the European Poker Tour you might be familiar with the name, particularly if you tune into the Russian commentary on EPT Live. Mikhail Semin is one of the hosts of the Russian broadcast, and along with Ilya Gorodetskiy provides some of the most energetic and lively poker coverage anywhere in the world.

Today though he works alone, returning to a stack of 400,000, roughly 25 big blinds.

It's not easy keeping track of a field this big, so when you wish good luck to someone you risk accidentally reminding them that their Main Event is at an end. Thank fully that wasn't the case with Semin before play began today.

Semin has had a busy summer, playing the entire series. It's what you do when the day job keeps you from playing as much poker as you'd like.

"It's fun when you're winning," he said. "Not when you're losing."

So far though he's had his share of the former, with five cashes this summer including a seventh place finish in the Seven Card Stud Championship worth $33,000. He's locked up at least $40,433 today, which in his words makes him even on the summer. He's also locked up at least a year's worth of bragging rights over his co-host.

Even more reason to look forward to the new EPT season.

Stephen Bartley is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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