Roberto Romanello – World Poker Tour Champion

It took Roberto Romanello three long hours to beat Mayu Roca and win the World Poker Tour Championship which concluded on 3^rd April, 2011. With the EPT and WPT titles in his bag, Romanello will now be looking forward to the poker “Triple Crown”, a title awarded to any poker player managing to win the European Poker Tour, the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. And that’s not far away –the World Series of Poker kicks off on May 31, 2011. There are only two players in poker history who have won the Triple Crown. The first person to win it was Gavin Griffin and the second was Roland de Wolfe from Britain. Roberto Romanello is aiming to be the third Triple Crown Winner.

After winning the European Poker Tour at Prague in December 2010, Roberto Romanello has gone for yet another exciting win. This time it was the World Poker Tour at Slovakia that added €1,40,685 to his tournament winnings along with a Tiffany bracelet and  $25,500 WPT World Championship seat. Romanello defeated 210 players to reach the highest level of the €493,155 prize pool.

Romanello began at the nine handed table as the leader with 1,803,000 chips. The action started with a bluff by Jesper Hoog which did not daunt Mayu Roca. However, Romanello succeeded in bluffing Lubomir Kublicka off a healthy pot and inducing him to go all in against Alexander Jager. Kublicka got ninth place winning €11,000. The next to go was Marek Tatar at eight place with € 14,000 who was soon followed by Bodo Sbrzesny for € 17,000 to claim the seventh place.

After three hours of play the table was down to six players, Romanello clashed with Chris Williamson and managed to eliminate him to sixth place with €21,000. Jesper Hoog took fifth place with €26,000 followed by Frank Dollinger for fourth place, adding €33,000 to his winnings. Next, Romanello finished off Alexander Jager for third place, with a payout of €42,000 and was heads-up against Mayu Roca of Columbia.

Mayu Roca gave a tough fight although Roberto Romanello held a 3,500,000 to 2,800,000 chip lead. It was a battle of wits between the two and Roberto had to play aggressive poker for three solid hours before he could be in the lead. Roca raised to 90,000, Romanello three-bet it to 2,55,000 and Roca re-raised it to 5,90,000. Romanello announced that he was all in. When Roca made the call, Romanello turned over a pair of fives and Roca was holding ace-king. The final community cards read Jc-6c-8h-3d-Qs making Mayu Roca the runners up and giving the WPT title to Roberto Romanello.

On being declared the winner of the World Poker Tour Bratislava, Roberto Romanello broke down and had to compose himself before accepting the trophy and the winner’s check.  Here are the final results of the World Poker Tour Bratislava:

1. Roberto Romanello                        €140,685
2. Mayu Roca                                                                     €71,000
3. Alexander Jager                                             €42,000
4. Frank Dollinger                                              €33,000
5. Jesper Hoog                                                  €26,000
6. Chris Williamson                                             €21,000
7. Bodo Sbrzesny                                              €17,000
8. Marek Tatar                                                  €14,000
9. Lubomir Kublicka                                            €11,000

So, with this win, Celebrity poker player Roberto Romanello heads to Las Vegas which is due to begin on May 31 with a fair chance to win the WSOP title and bag the Triple Crown.