Home / Poker News February 2012 / WPT Venice Grand Prix – Rinat Bogdanov Wins
WPT Venice Grand Prix – Rinat Bogdanov Wins
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2012-02-11 15:37
Friday was the final day of the WPT’s Venice Grand Prix at the end of which the winner emerged: Rinat Bogdanov was the one who managed to best an initial starting field of 155 players, to pocket the $302k top prize. Besides the cash, he got a little side-benefit for his win too: a seat in the WPT’s World Championship event which is scheduled to take place in May at the Bellagio.
The interesting thing about Bogdanov’s win was that upon entering the 9-handed stage of the event, his stack was still among the shortest. He mounted a spectacular comeback though and by the time the final table was set, he was close to the top of the pops. Andrea Dato was the chip leader heading into the televised final table. While Dato had around 1.6 million chips, Bogdanov was riding along in third place behind a stack of 907k.
The official final table was a 6-handed affair. The first victim of the day was short-stack Andrea Carini, who got the last of his chips into the middle during the second level of the day on an A,3o. Dato made the call with pocket 8s and the short-stack failed to catch up, busting out in 6th.
Gianluca Trebbi got it all-in next with a 10h,7h against Alessandro Longobardi’s pocket Js and failed to get any help from the board.
Bogdanov swung into action next, doubling up at the expense of the chip leader. He then disposed of Simon Ravnsbaek in 4th place to grab the lead. Dato still had a decent stack at that stage, but he tangled with Bogdanov again, and this time, he paid for his temerity with his tournament life.
Bogdanov entered the heads-up stage of the
poker tournament with a substantial chip lead. The final bout didn’t last long: the last hand of the event saw Longobardi shove all-in with a two pair, only to be called by Bogdanov who had a boat. Longobardi picked up $146k for his second place.
