Italian poker championships

[bigdottawa]

I was kind of surprised today when I visited the Gazzetta dello Sport website (Italy's biggest sports newspaper), that coverage of poker was on the main page.

Anyways, thought I would use some of my limited Italian to try and figure out what's going on in the tournament for anyone interested in "obscure" poker tournaments.

From what I can make out, the "main event" started today, and there was around 350 entrants. Doesn't mention what the buy-in is, but Hendon Mob has buy-ins from last year main event at €1000. First prize is over €100k.

Only name I noticed that's been mentioned is Max Pescatori, who won a WSOP bracelet last year and has over $1.5 million winnings. Other names mentioned in the article, with earnings in brackets, are Roberto Binelli(over $300k), Dario Alioto($80k) and Fabrizio Ascari($70k), who won the event last year.

Last year, this event had just over 130 entrants, so it's grown nicely. This is the 4th Italian poker championships - although the first one was held in Slovakia for some reason. Article also mentions that Italy will be getting an EPT stop.

[shaniac]

Maybe next year, they'll let the rest of us know about this in advance? Is it only open to Italians?

[olivert]

The Italy market is taking off, and the "Big 3" of Max Pescatori, Luca Pagano, and Marco Traniello (Jennifer Harman's husband) are making a play to grab as much mindshare and marketshare as possible. The "Big 3" licensed the "CardPlayer" brand to start CardPlayer Italia. Pagano has a deal with PokerStars while Pescatori and Traniello have deals with FullTilt.

[daryn]

wow that would be really fun, wish i had known about it

[ElCattivo]

it was open to everyone - one of the smaller pokerrooms (which concentrates on the european market) ran qualifiers for the Main Event (€1000 buy in) + the two side events ...

only for one week, though

[franzinator]

tournaments were held at casinò in sanremo , close to the french border.
4 events : 300+30 , 500+50 , 1000+100 and a sunday 200+20 doublechance .
Max Pescatori won the main event ( 343 entrants ) , and took home 60K€ , after a 3way split .
All the tourneys were soldout , and many players were on the list to eventaully buy some entry.
No big international names . Game level pretty soft , but structure really tough , with 40 minutes levels , and deep growht of blinds ; this had turned the play in a sort of lottery . Very well played anyway by Max .
These kind of tourneys will be held here in italy every month by now in 3 different casinos: Venezia , SaintVincent ( 70km from Torino ) , and Sanremo .
If you are looking for infos about these tournaments feel free to PM me , or look at this link www.assopoker.com , that provide infos about italian poker , and will be soon translated in english too .....

[shaniac]

for some reason I thought poker was illegal in Italy.

[daryn]

it definitely used to be

[franzinator]

[ QUOTE ]
for some reason I thought poker was illegal in Italy.

[/ QUOTE ]

not in the casinos ....
illegal online and live off casinos