Italy's Max Pescatori Wins 2nd Bracelet Of 2015 WSOP
June 23, 2015 12:34 amOn Monday, US pro Brian Hastings became the first player to pick up a second bracelet at the 2015 WSOP, and now just one day later Italian pro Max Pescatori has done likewise, in the process extending his career WSOP bracelet tally to four in total. At the beginning of June, Max Pescatori took down Event #9: $1,500 Seven Card Razz for $155,947, and in his latest winning performance ‘The Italian Pirate’ beat a field of 111 players at Event #41: $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship to take home a first place prize worth $292,158, after which he commented:
“I believed I could do it, because stud is my best game. Coming into the series, I thought this event was my best shot to win another gold bracelet. The win in razz wasn’t the event I necessarily thought was my best chance, so that was nice to get it there. But I always thought stud was the game where I could go deep. I even spent a lot of time beforehand studying and thinking more about the game.”
Event #41 attracted a good sized field to create a prize pool worth $1,043,400, and amongst the 16 players subsequently seeing a return on their $10k buy-in was Phil Galfond in 16th ($18,426), Huck Seed in 15th ($18,426), Mike Leah in 14th ($21,181), Benjamin Yu in 12th ($24,352), and Yuval Bronshtein in 11th ($24,352).
Max Pescatori then had to contend with a tough final table which included the likes of UK pro Stephen Chidwick and Canadian superstar Daniel Negreanu. Eventually, Pescatori would make it all the way to four-handed play, but at one stage saw his chip stack reduced to just three big bets before staging an incredible comeback. The 44 year-old would subsequently see off Negreanu and then Stephen Chidwick heads-up to wrap up the victory, and commenting on his remarkable performance said:
“This is a streaky game. You need some luck of course. But if you can hang in there and then catch some cards, if you are determined, you can make up a lot of ground in just a few hands. That’s what happened.”
The Italian’s other WSOP bracelets came in 2006 at the $2,500 No Limit Hold’em event for $682,389, and in 2008 at the $2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha event for $246,509. Pescatori now sits atop Italy’s ‘All Time Money List’ with $4,078,532 in earnings, ahead of Mustapha Kanit in second place with $3,774,515 in tournament winnings.
Final Table Results:
1 Max Pescatori $292,158
2 Stephen Chidwick $180,529
3 Daniel Negreanu $113,062
4 Aleksandr Denisov $81,865
5 Gary Benson $63,981
6 Thomas Butzhammer $51,022
7 Richard Sklar $41,433
8 Alan Ledford $34,192