Home / Poker News February 2011 / WPT Venice – Alessio Isaia scores a big one for Italy
WPT Venice – Alessio Isaia scores a big one for Italy
Posted by: James Carter. - Thu, 2011-02-10 11:30
The WPT’s Venice stop proved to be rather successful in attracting registrants: 523 players showed up $4,512 in hand, hoping to make it all the way to the top to grab the lion’s share of the $2,081,132 prize-pool. When the dust settled in the wake of the final table, it was Italy’s own Alessio Isaia who stood tall, trophy in hand and top prize in pocket.
David Wamplew started the final table with the largest stack of chips. Isaia didn’t look bad himself at the beginning of the day, holding a stack of 2.9 million chips. The short-stack was Renato Paolini, who only had 405k. Paolini wasted no time putting his tournament life onto the line: he shoved all-in on each of the first two hands. On his second hand, Max Lykov was there to keep him honest with an Ac, Kc and even though his K,Jo wouldn’t have been bad against any random starting hand, it was way behind Lykov’s. It never managed to catch up either and Paolini’s tournament life came to an abrupt end.
The hand he took down only represented a short lease on Lykov’s own tourney life however. The Russian was the next one to hit the rail, when his 8c,7c fell to Emmanuel Rodrigues’ pocket rockets.
Luca Fiorini fell next. When he shoved all-in, he looked good with his A,10 against Alessio Isaia’s A,7. The board brought another 7 to give Isaia a pair and to bounce Fiorini in 6th place.
Adrien Camille Garrigues was eliminated in 5th. Emmanuel Rodrigues followed him to the rail in 4th.
Szabolcs Mayer bounced David Wamplew in 3rd place to set up the heads-up stage of the event. Mayer had the chip advantage in the beginning, but that changed. It took a record 8 hours for Isaia to put Mayer away and to pick up the €380k top prize. Mayer took down €228k.
