Home / Poker News May 2009 / WPT Venice won by Swede
WPT Venice won by Swede
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2009-05-13 08:03
There's not a more beautiful city in the world than Venice, and if you ask Sven Ragnar Astrom of Sweden, he's sure to agree. Astrom arrived in the historical city to take part in his first ever live poker tournament, the inaugural Venice stop of the World Poker Tour; he left as its winner.
In total a very handsome number of 397 turned up last week at the Casino di Venezia for the newest stop on the World Poker Tour creating a prize pool of €1.5 million and a first place prize of nearly €400,000; not a bad return at a hundred times the buy-in. Astrom burst into poker fame with his win, as the unknown player beat the likes of Dario Mineri, Chad Brown, and Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier to the pot.
As final table play got underway on Sunday May 10th Astrom was in possession of over a third of all the chips in play, but did not remain in the lead as fellow Swede Per Martin Jacobson took the chip lead, and it was to be those two who met in heads up play having knocked out the winner of the 2008 Dortmund stop of the European Poker Tour, Michael "Timex" McDonald. Astrom took down the house with a full house to win $564,723, in his first live event ever.
The event was powered by Bwin who were responsible for many of the entrants' presence, including 3rd place winner Vincent "vincent582" Pasdeloup. This was also Pasdeloup's first live event, having qualified through a Bwin feeroll; he won €159,740.
