Sicilian Online Qualifier Joins Party Poker Premier League IV

After a brief series of play-off sit & go’s in Las Vegas, Giovanni Safina (44) from Sicily fought off competition from 15 opponents to claim the Premier League IV seat reserved for one of 16 Internet qualifiers. 
From his initial €100 investment, Safina won an online satellite that allowed him to compete against his fellow qualifiers at the M Resort, for the $100,000 buy-in event. Following his victory, the Palermo lawyer explained:
“This is the very first time I have been to Las Vegas. Poker is purely a hobby for me though I have won €25,000 online before. To reach the Premier League was always my goal and I am incredibly happy. I have believed in myself since the beginning – yes, I got short-stacked at times but I always knew that with poker anything is possible.”
Giovanni Safina will now be able to realise a dream of a life time and take a seat at one of the most prestigious poker events of the year, alongside a top tier field of pros, which includes Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, JC Tran, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Vanessa Rousso, Roland de Wolfe, David Benyamine, Phil Laak, Luke Schwartz and Tony G.
Initially, it will surely be quite intimidating for the lucky winner as he looks across the felt and sees a stellar poker line-up with over $47 million live tournament cashes and dozens of WSOP bracelets between them. However, the $1.5 million prize pool should help him to quickly re- focus his attention on the game at hand.
“I am a huge poker fan and have seen all the players I will be competing against on television. It is going to be so emotional sitting down with them for the first time but I will keep myself in check,” Safina commented.
The PartyPoker Premier League IV starts proper on Friday, and now just one seat remains to be filled to complete the 11 poker pro and one qualifier line-up. Battling it out for that honour will be six members of Team PartyPoker, including Felipe ‘Mojave’ Ramos , Remy Biechel, Bodo Sbrzesny, Ian Frazer, Mike Sexton and Dragan Galic.