Trueteller: From Siberian Childhood to Poker Millionaire

Timofey Kuznetsov, known as Trueteller, is one of the most famous high-stakes poker players in the Russian-speaking community. However, his life story is not widely known due to his preference for privacy and rare interviews. Recently, he appeared in a video for the YouTube show I Am High Stakes Poker on Paul Phua Poker, where he discussed his childhood, education, and how he entered the world of poker.

Contrary to previous rumors, Kuznetsov did not grow up in Gelendzhik. Instead, he spent his early years in a small town in Siberia, approximately 3,000 km from Moscow. He described his hometown as charming, with a high concentration of former scientists and clean air due to the lack of factories. "I grew up in a small town in Siberia. It was a rather nice town, I would say. There were a lot of former scientists living there. When I was 17, I moved to Moscow, where I enrolled in Moscow State University (MГУ) to study mathematics and applied probability theory."

Kuznetsov's journey into poker began during his second year at university. Inspired by a friend's poker winnings, he started playing and quickly found success. "On the second year of university I started playing poker and it turned out that I could play well from the start, so I soon decided that I would not build a normal career anymore, I would develop in poker." His parents initially disapproved of his poker career but later supported him after he started winning significant amounts of money. "The first few years of my poker playing, when I wasn't making much money, my parents didn't like it because they thought I could build a good career in finance or something like that. They thought: 'What is he doing with his life, playing cards?'. But then, when I started winning a lot, my dad realized that I had chosen the right thing for myself and started supporting me. And my mom too."