When most people think about their first live tournament cash, they have fond memories of a low buy-in tournament, probably at their local casino, when they were able to just eek out a profit. It’s an exciting time, even if the cash is so tiny that the cost of food and drink that night makes the player a net loser. Now imagine how Edoardo Alescio must feel. He scored his first ever live tournament cash this weekend, not in some $60 shove fest, but in the €3,000 World Poker Tour (WPT) Venice Main Event. By World Poker Tour standards, it was rather small with just 213 players registering, but it’s still the World Poker Tour and Alescio is now €175,000 richer.
Edoardo Alescio entered the six-handed final table in second place with 1,714,000 chips. There was a clear divide between the “haves” and “have nots” at the table, with three players over a million chips (Michele Caroli led the way with over 2 million) and three players at half a million or under. Here were the chip counts to start the day:
Michele Caroli – 2,097,000
Edoardo Alescio – 1,714,000
Andrea Benelli – 1,143,000
Steve O’Dwyer – 501,000
Alex Dovzhenko – 480,000
Andrea Dato – 461,000
Alescio started quickly, winning the first pot and taking a one million chip lead in less than an hour. It was American Steve O’Dwyer who took the first pelt, though, eliminating Alex Dovzhenko in a race: O’Dwyer’s A-K outflopped Dovzhenko’s 9-9. Dovzhenko was out in 6th place, while O’Dwyer was right back in the match with a million chips.
That cushion lasted less than an hour, as in what would be a preview of a face-off we’d see a lot of later, Alescio knocked him back down to near his final table starting stack. Alescio continued to soar, growing his chip stack to over 3 million in the first two hours of play. It looked like it would be a short day for all involved.
There was no quit in O’Dwyer, though. Despite sinking lower, he kept up the fight, doubling up once through Andrea Benelli and then making a big move in a three-way hand. Benelli moved all-in for his last 76,000 chips with K-T, O’Dwyer called with a dominated Q-T, and Michele Caroli called from the big blind with K-3. The flop of 9-8-2 kept Benelli in the lead, but the turn was not so happy, as a Queen shifted the power to O’Dwyer. Another Queen on the river sealed Benelli’s fate and he was gone in 5th place, while O’Dwyer climbed up to 1,743,000.
Just a few hands later, Andrea Dato moved all-in pre-flop for 249,000 with K-9 and O’Dwyer called with A-4. Neither player improved through the river, which meant that Dato, the chip leader after Day 1A, was eliminated in 4th place and O’Dwyer moved into the chip lead.
From there, O’Dwyer looked like he was going to run away with the tournament, just like it appeared that Alescio would earlier. His two Italian opponents couldn’t make any good moves, both attempting big bluffs at exactly the wrong time. They kept sinking while O’Dwyer kept rising. Eventually, Alescio need to just start shoving, something he did in an astounding eight of ten hands at one point, and in none of those instances was he called.
Finally, about six hours after the start of the final table, Alescio was looked up on an all-in. He committed all his chips pre-flop with A-Q and Caroli made the call with A-J (considering the hand and Alescio’s shoving frequency, it was a good play, just bad timing). The community cards were all blanks and Caroli hit the rail in 3rd place.
It was down to the decorated O’Dwyer versus the devoid-of-live-cashes Alescio, with O’Dwyer holding about a 3-to-1 chip lead. Put your money on O’Dwyer, right? Not so fast.
O’Dwyer got it up to around a 5 million to 1 million chip lead, but then Alescio went on a tear. He picked up about 600,000 in two hands combined by – what else – moving all-in pre-flop. He then picked up another quarter million before taking down what was probably the most important pot of the tournament. With the board reading Q-9-4-7 with two diamonds, O’Dwyer bet and Alescio went all-in, holding 6-7 of diamonds. O’Dwyer made the call with Q-T, giving him top pair versus Alescio’s third pair and flush draw. The river made Alescio’s flush, allowing him to double up to just over 4 million and regain the chip lead for the first time in hours.
He extended his lead over the next few hands before finally putting the nail in O’Dwyer’s poker coffin. O’Dwyer was all-in pre-flop with A-7 and Alescio called him with pocket 5’s. The dealer laid out one of those “yeeeaaahhh….nooooooo!” flops, as he gave O’Dwyer a 7, but at the same time put down a 5 to give Alescio a set. O’Dwyer couldn’t get lucky after that and Edoardo Alescio had made his first live cash, just a little thing called the WPT Venice championship.
WPT Venice – Final Table Results
1. Edoardo Alescio – €175,000
2. Steve O’Dwyer – €95,530
3. Michele Caroli – €66,090
4. Andrea Dato – €43,170
5. Andrea Benelli – €34,245
6. Alex Dovzhenko – €27,035
