Ravnsbaek Rocking at WPT Venice Grand Prix

(Photo: Simon Ravnsbaek)

The World Poker Tour (WPT) Venice Grand Prix Day 3 will be remembered for the battles between Andrea Dato, Simon Ravnsbaek and Marcel Bjerkmann. The trio of loose aggressive players clashed continuously, and it was easy to forget that there was anyone else even playing in the room!

At the end of six pulsating levels of poker it was Simon Ravnsbaek, who not only won the battle of the LAGs, but finished as the chip leader with 795,000 chips. Ravnsbaek is no stranger to WPT final tables after finishing in 3rd place in last seasons difficult tournament held in the Austrian capital of Vienna, and he will hoping to make it WPT final table number two when play resumes tomorrow at 13.00 (CET).

The day started with Kara Scott and Carla Solinas holding the mantle as our final two female players. Solinas was not only playing to get into the money, but also the pride of finishing as the WPT Venice Last Woman Seating for the third consecutive year (events held in this casino). When Kara Scott goes to bed tonight she will be counting small pocket pairs instead of sheep. Scott had played superbly throughout the entire tournament but as everyone knows you have to win your flips. Scott couldn’t win either of hers when it mattered, and her pocket fives and threes sent her to the rail far too early in this competition.

(Photo: Kara Scott)

The departure of Scott confirmed Solinas as the last woman seating but she found herself standing just moments later. When her exit came it was awful, after she found herself all-in with ace-king against the dominated ace-jack of Alessandro Longobardi. Longobardi sucked out and gave his fellow countrywoman a consolatory hug.

(Photo: Carla Solinas)

As we moved into Level 15 our chip leader was the enigmatic and controversial Marcel Bjerkmann and he was being chased by the American Jason Wheeler. Level 15 was also the time for the money bubble to burst and the unfortunate poster boy was Lionel Tran. Tran was one of the tightest players left in the competition so it really must have hurt him when Bjerkmann cracked his pocket kings with the massive [Jh] [4h] to send him home without any pay.

(Photo: Lionel Tran)

After the elimination of Tran we braced ourselves for usual deluge of eliminations but they just didn’t seem to come. The stacks were fairly deep and the short stacked players were just sitting tight. Bjerkmann was wreaking absolute havoc and would have been the favourite to make final table. Tran’s elimination meant we were now down to the final two tables and Bjerkmann found himself sandwiched between Ravnsbaek and Dato, a position from which his tournament started to go downhill and rapidly.

(Photo L-R Dato, Mosele, Bjerkmann, Ravnsbaek)

Bjerkmann was still unracking his mighty stack when he raised from early position. Simon Ravnsbaek three-bet one seat to his left and when the action folded around to Bjerkmann he moved all-in. Ravnsbaek called with pocket queens and Bjerkmann turned over [As] [4h] with so much confidence and swagger everyone thought he was holding pocket aces. Ravnsbaek doubled up and it allowed him to start playing back at Dato, who had been giving him a hard time all day.

(Photo: L-R Bjerkmann & Ravnsbaek)

Moving into Level 17 and the American Jason Wheeler had overtaken Bjerkmann as the chip leader. Wheeler seemed to have complete control over his very nitty table with only Marko Neumann seemingly willing to tangle with the online dynamo.

(Photo: Jason Wheeler)

Then we saw a hand that lifted Bjerkmann into orbit. Bjerkmann check-raised on a flop of [Qc] [8h] [7s] in a three-way pot with Dato and James Akenhead. Dato made the call and we saw the [8d] on the turn. Bjerkmann bet again and once again Dato called. On the river we saw the [4h] and Bjerkmann bet strongly for a third consecutive time and Dato went still. He thought for a good two minutes before calling and Bjerkmann was forced to show a complete airbag. Dato then turned his cards over and he had sevens full of eights.

"That is the sickest slow roll I have ever had in my life. Do not talk to me dude. If you see me in the street do not talk to me," said an irate Bjerkmann.

(Photo: L-R Dato, Mosele, Bjerkmann)

After that hand the table descended into chaos with Bjerkmann verbally attacking Dato at every possible opportunity. In the end the floor stepped in and warned Bjerkmann that if he didn’t respect his fellow players he would suffer the consequences. The admonishment did the trick, and Bjerkmann’s lips remained tightly shut, but it was the beginning of the end for the Norwegian.

Level 18 next and it was Andrea Dato who held the chip lead, closely followed by Simon Ravnsbaek and Jason Wheeler. One man who had dropped from grace on Day 3 was James Akenhead. The recent Sunday Million winner was on a mini heater but he failed to get further than 14th place after having his aces cracked by that man Bjerkmann. Then Ravnsbaek managed to get a five bet shove through Andrea Dato and took the chip lead at the same time.

Then after Marko Neumann fell at the hands of Andrea Carini, Gianluca Trebbi found himself with the label of the luckiest man in the room, after a five bet bluff shove against the then chip leader Simon Ravnsbaek. Ravnsbaek snapped him off with pocket kings and a red faced Trebbi was forced to show the room his lowly [9c] [8d]. The flop came down [4d] [3d] [2c] and the water taxi was already parked outside waiting to take Trebbi home. Then a [8c] turn and [9d] river showed us all what a fickle character poker can be and Trebbi was right back in the game.

(Photo: Gianluca Trebbi)

It didn’t take long for Ravnsbaek to recover though. After joking that he would now tilt away the rest of his chips he won a fantastic pot from his nemesis Dato, before eliminating the man with plenty to say, Marcel Bjerkmann. Bjerkmann raised with [Ah] [8h] before calling off a shove from Ravnsbaek holding pocket fives. The Dane’s hand held and Bjerkmann walked out of the room with his white hotel slippers skidding along the floor.

During all of this action Alessandro Longobardi was just sat patiently watching a movie on his ipad. Each time we passed the table he was inconspicuous by his absence. Then in a series of hands he catapulted himself from a no-one man to one of the chip leaders. The person to feel the full force of the Italian might was the Russian Andrey Gulyy. Gulyy had flopped top set on a rainbow board and fired three streets into Longobardi who kept calling hoping to hit his draw. The draw completed on the river and Gulyy was enraged. A few hands later and Longobardi finished the job to book himself a second place spot just a few chips behind Ravnsbaek.

(Photo: Andrey Gulyy)

That was the last action of the night and here is the preliminary final table seat draw. Action resumes at 13.00 (CET) when we will play down to our televised final table of six players.

Final Nine Players

Seat 1: Andrea Dato: 726,000
Seat 2: Simon Ravnsbaek: 795,000
Seat 3: Andrea Carini: 430,000
Seat 4: Rinat Bogdanov: 201,000
Seat 5: Gianluca Trebbi: 474,000
Seat 6: Jeremie Sochet: 402,000
Seat 7: Jason Wheeler: 699,000
Seat 8: Alessandro Longobardi: 783,000
Seat 9: Massimo Mosele: 163,000