Boy-faced and grinning wide, Yevgeniy Timoshenko celebrated the richest victory of his short poker career in April by grabbing four thick bricks of cash, holding them high over his head.

The money was just part of his $2.1 million jackpot.

The 21-year-old, who lived in Mukilteo with his parents at the time, smiled as the cameras covering the Five Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas beamed his image around the globe.

Timoshenko had won tournaments around the world, but never one as big as this one.

So the celebration was a coming-out party for one of the game’s newest superstars. He had already proved himself a menace to opposing players.

Timoshenko has won a total of $3,159,215 at live tournaments since turning professional in 2007, according to Web sites that track winnings.

TV shows around the world have rebroadcast his victories.

Magazines have heralded his triumph.

Card Player magazine made him a cover boy in May, and wrote an article about his Vegas victory that stated “Simply put, the kid made it look easy.”

Blogs announced the arrival of a superstar.

After he won $500,000 in China, for instance, one poker blog compared him to a “marauding horde.”

It is a strange thing to blow up like Timoshenko, going from playing free online poker in his parent’s home to playing for millions of dollars in cities all over the world.

Although it’s now illegal to play poker online for money in Washington, Timoshenko got his start before those rules were in place. In those days, many online tournaments were free, but occasionally offered small jackpots during special events. He’d use that money to buy into larger tournaments.

The Las Vegas tournament that he won in April cost $25,000 to enter.

His victory impressed Mike Sexton, television host and commentator for the World Poker Tour the past seven years.

“It looks like the kid will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come,” Sexton said. “To win that kind of money at that age is astronomical.”

Sexton said Timoshenko is part of a young, smart and skilled generation of poker players that honed their craft on the Internet, which gave them a chance to play countless hands and gain valuable experience. They learned in a short time what took old-school professional players many years at the table.

Sexton also described Timoshenko as “a very polite kid,” who impressed him by buying a new suit and getting a haircut after he qualified for the televised finals of the Five Star World Poker Classic in Las Vegas. “That showed me a lot,” he said.

Timoshenko, a 2006 graduate of Mukilteo’s Kamiak High School, appears to be handling his new lifestyle with modesty, though. Online, after all, he sometimes played under the name “Jovial Gent.”

Despite his millions, Timoshenko continued living with his parents through last month. He moved into a condo in Seattle less than two weeks ago.

The family moved to the United States from Ukraine when Timoshenko was 8, and to Mukilteo shortly after that.

Since then, he has rocketed to stardom.

Six years ago, at the age of 15, he started watching poker on TV. Then he began playing with friends and in free games online.

He caught “the poker bug,” he said.

Soon Timoshenko was playing all time, during school, after class, all through the night. His first-ever tournament win came during high school in a tournament that he entered for free.

He took home $300.

“It was on a school night,” he said, apologetically. “But I was ecstatic.”

Even as he graduated high school, poker still seemed more a pastime than a profession, so he enrolled in college.

In his first semester, he went on a winning spree that changed his life. In one eight-day stretch, Timoshenko spent three days playing poker online, using earlier winnings to pay expensive entry fees. He ended up winning nearly $300,000.

Timoshenko dropped out of college.

Soon he was on a plane for Bermuda and his first-ever live international tournament.

“I felt like I was on top of the world — living the life,” he said.

Since then he has settled in.

Timoshenko was never star-struck by poker’s bright lights or big names, he said.

Now, though? He knows those people.

“I have played with all of them,” he said. “I know I can hang with any of them.”

Buddies still invite him to play in games back home. Usually, he’s out of town, or he declines the offers. He plays enough poker already, after all.

Other times he wishes he could join, because social poker is easier poker.

Playing poker professionally is tough, Timoshenko said. When you should fold, you must fold.

One must play smart.

“It is a grind,” he said. “At the highest limits, the average observer cannot fathom what the players are thinking. There are so many different mind games, so many different variables and so many different pieces of information that the players are thinking about.”

That’s why Timoshenko’s newest professional goals have nothing to do with cards.

He wants to become a brand, he said.

More than 6 feet tall, he’s clean cut and good looking. That could be an advantage away from poker’s green felt tables, said Timoshenko, who dreams of endorsements and advertising deals.

“I want to have a lot of passive income so I don’t have to play poker to make money,” he said. “I want to play poker as a hobby.”

Then he can play at home, with his friends, just like he started.

Then he can be reckless.

“Then I can gamble it up like crazy,” Timoshenko said.

Chris Fyall: 425-339-3447, cfyall@heraldnet.com.