Italian Takes Europe

12/27/2008		Italian Takes Europe
Home History Games News Dictionary		For the first time, an Italian has taken the title of the European Poker Tour hosted by Poker Stars. The recent event, held last week in Prague saw an impressive number of players vying for the title dwindle to just a few in as many days, making a fast and exciting tournament that Salvatore Bonavena took for his own. The competition began with 570 players chipping in to participate. Within three days, the nearly 600 were reduced to a group of thirty- two, eliminating big names such as Dario Minieri, Davidi Kitai, Anthony Lellouche, Chris Moorman, and Katja Thater as well as Alex Kravchenko and recent World Series of Poker champion, young Peter Eastgate. From the group of 32, the competition quickly dwindled to the final table: Bonavena (with a chip lead of 1,402,000), up against Alexiou Konstantinos in second with 1,382,000 on the table. The remaining players were Francesco Cirianni, Fredrik Nygard, Massimo Di Cicco, Nasr El Nasr, Raul Mestre and Andrew Alan Chen, in order of chip amounts. The last stage of the game was nearly as exciting as the first couple of days, with Bonavena losing his lead a number of times, only to recover ably. The final competition was a heads up between Di Cicco and him, boiling down to a fantastic last hour in the tournament. They entered heads-up play with Bonavena in the lead 4-to-1, and came out of the power hour the victor, and proud recipient of 774,000 euros. Di Cicco received 445,000 for his game play and third place was occupied by Canadian Andrew Alan Chen, earning him 257,000. This marks the first time an Italian has won the European Poker Tour.

12/27/2008

Italian Takes Europe

For the first time, an Italian has taken the title of the European Poker Tour hosted by Poker Stars. The recent event, held last week in Prague saw an impressive number of players vying for the title dwindle to just a few in as many days, making a fast and exciting tournament that Salvatore Bonavena took for his own.

The competition began with 570 players chipping in to participate. Within three days, the nearly 600 were reduced to a group of thirty- two, eliminating big names such as Dario Minieri, Davidi Kitai, Anthony Lellouche, Chris Moorman, and Katja Thater as well as Alex Kravchenko and recent World Series of Poker champion, young Peter Eastgate. From the group of 32, the competition quickly dwindled to the final table: Bonavena (with a chip lead of 1,402,000), up against Alexiou Konstantinos in second with 1,382,000 on the table. The remaining players were Francesco Cirianni, Fredrik Nygard, Massimo Di Cicco, Nasr El Nasr, Raul Mestre and Andrew Alan Chen, in order of chip amounts.

The last stage of the game was nearly as exciting as the first couple of days, with Bonavena losing his lead a number of times, only to recover ably. The final competition was a heads up between Di Cicco and him, boiling down to a fantastic last hour in the tournament. They entered heads-up play with Bonavena in the lead 4-to-1, and came out of the power hour the victor, and proud recipient of 774,000 euros. Di Cicco received 445,000 for his game play and third place was occupied by Canadian Andrew Alan Chen, earning him 257,000. This marks the first time an Italian has won the European Poker Tour.