In front of a jubilant hometown crowd, local favorite Edoardo Alescio beat out a field of 213 entrants to win WPT Venice and become the latest poker player to have their name engraved on the WPT Champions Cup. The Italian amateur took on a final table that consisted of several experienced poker pros, including two-time WPT final tablist Steve O’Dwyer, to take home the top prize of €194,000. For the victory, Alescio earns a seat at the $25,000 2012 WPT World Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Tiffany and Co.® WPT Champions Award, the WPT Champions Trophy, and entry into the WPT Champions Club.
When the final table action started at Casino Di Venezia Ca’ Noghera, the 23-year-old Economics student had already battled back from a short stack (only 7 big blinds with 10 players remaining) to enter play with the second largest chip stack. As the players were whittled down, it became seemingly inevitable that the tournament would be determined by the battle between Alescio and O’Dyer, and that’s exactly what happened. Although O’Dwyer entered heads-up play with a 2 to 1 chip lead, Alescio fought his way back, playing aggressively and oftentimes putting his entire stack and tournament life at risk. The moves paid off and eventually handed Alescio the tournament.
Here are the full final table standings and payouts:
1. Edoardo Alescio (IT) – €194,000
2. Steve O’Dwyer (US) – €95,930
3. Michele Caroli (IT) – €66,090
4. Andrea Dato (IT) – €43,170
5. Andrea Benelli (IT) – €34,245
6. Alex Dovzhenko (UKR) – €27,035
WPT Live Streaming of the final table was hosted by acclaimed poker journalist and commentator Jesse May and Italian poker pro Giovanni Rizzo and was available on the WPT Live Streaming page as well as, for the first time ever, on iPhones and iPads.
Other notable finishes at WPT Venice included two members of the WPT Champions Club, Taylor Von Kriegenbergh (20th) and Roberto Romanello (15th) as well as French poker pro Arnaud Mattern (11th) and Marvin Rettenmeier (8th), who is estimated to have attended more live tournaments than any other player in 2011.
Check out more photos from WPT Venice below and get more details at the WPT Venice Live Updates page.
