Congratulations to Rocco Palumbo Winner of WPT Venice Grand Prix (140,000)
Mar 30, 2013
The World Poker Tour (WPT) Venice Grand Prix has come to it’s dramatic conclusion and we say a warm congratulations to Rocco Palumbo, who takes the €140,000 first-prize, a seat at the WPT Championships at the Bellagio and a place in the coveted WPT Champions Club. Palumbo defeated 173-players to keep the Venetian title in it’s home country after taking down his fellow countryman Marcello Montagner in heads up action. Our very own Mike Sexton finished the final table in third place, his best WPT performance to date.
Here are the highlights of the final table….
The pace started off very slow, but that is expected with so much at stake. But it didn’t take long for our first player to be holding his head in his despairing hands. At times, yesterday, Erion Islamay was bossing this tournament. But an ill-timed move against the experienced Mike Sexton saw Islamay slide from the top of command to one of the foot soldiers.
He started the day as one of the short stacks and made his move holding [As] [6h] on the button, only to be called by the chip leader, Marcello Montagner, who was seated in the big blind holding pocket tens. The board ran out [Tc] [8s] [5h] [7h] [6s] and Islamay was our first casualty of Venetian final table war.
Level 24 saw us lose our second player and it was the man who started the day as the shortest stack in the competition. Xia Lin spent most of the first level moving his stack across the line uncontested, until finally he found a caller in the shape of Rocco Palumbo. It was [Ad] [6d] for Lin, but Palumbo had him dominated with [As] [Jh]. The board held no salvation for Lin and he was out in fifth for a score of €30,100.
Rocco Palumbo loved every minute of the first half of Level 24. The Italian WSOP bracelet holder found pocket aces to double through Robert Begni, just moments before he eliminated Lin, and he started the 25th level in similar fashion. Palumbo nailing a full house, and getting paid from Montagner, to take the chip lead for the first time during this tournament.
And then there were three.
Robert Begni had not had his best day at the office, but it still needed a little bit of luck to dispatch him to the sidelines. Marcello Montagner seemingly has that in droves, and so it once again proved, in a hand that resulted in the elimination of Begni. Begni made his move with [Ad] [6s] and was reluctantly called by Montagner holding [Jd] [2c]. The first four cards were nice and clean for Begni but the fifth was anything but. Another deuce hitting the board hard and the reverberations sent Begni crashing out of the competition.
Palumbo just didn’t let up. He opened every button and won 95% of the pots against the Marcello Montagner big blind defence. Mike Sexton was just a bystander as he seemed content to just let the Italians battle it out. Then we had the first family pot of the day and it ended with Sexton’s seat being vacated.
On a board of [Jc] [7s] [6c] [As] Mike Sexton moved all-in holding [Jh] [9h] and was snap-called by Montagner who was holding [As] [7s] for two pair. The river bricked and the fans favourite was out in third place. Ever the consumate professional, Sexton left the table and took up his familiar spot in the commentary booth to finish working on the heads up action.
When heads up action began, Rocco Palumbo had the chip lead with 3,095,000 playing the 2,090,000 of Marcello Montagner. The action didn’t last too long. The final hand coming after around 20-minutes of play and you can read all about it just below this recap.
So that’s a wrap. We salute Rocco Palumbo as he adds a WPT title to the WSOP bracelet that he won this summer. We’re all off to Barcelona and hope that you join us to.
@WPT