Yorky Pud

The World Poker Tour has quite literally dropped anchor in the beautiful and historical city of Venice for the WPT Venice Grand Prix Main Event, where the 155 entrants have been whittled down to the last 27. Those 27 players will return to the Casino Di Venezia, the oldest fully functioning casino in the entire world, today knowing that only 18 of them will make it through to the money places. One man who looks nailed on to make it there is British pro James Akenhead. Akenhead starts the day fourth in chips with a very healthy looking stack of 336,000. Throughout yesterday's Day 2 Akenhead made a complete nuisance of himself by constantly three and four-betting his opponents in a relentless fashion and looked like he was in the zone. When asked about this step up in aggression he ...

The €3,300 World Poker Tour Venice Main Event came to a thrilling conclusion late on Sunday night after a rank amateur by the name of Edoardo Alescio defeated seasoned pro player, Steve O'Dwyer, to claim the title and the €175,000 first place prize. At the start of the five day event Alescio was a complete unknown in the poker world, the youngster did not even have a Hendon Mob page bearing his name but now his name will be remembered forever, engraved into the coveted Champions Cup alongside every single former WPT Main Event champion since the long-running tour first started. Throughout the tournament, the first major event he had ever registered for, Alescio was seen sporting a wide smile, constantly beaming like the Cheshire Cat, thoroughly enjoying his experience. Along ...

The World Poker Tour Venice Main Event has seen the 213 entrants whittled down to the final table of six and it is Michele Caroli who everyone has to catch if they want to become a WPT champion. Caroli starts the day armed with 2,097,000 chips, having won most of his chips in a massive pot between himself and Marvin Rettenmaier. In that particular hand Caroli raised to 50,000 from cutoff with blinds at 8,000/16,000/2,000a, itself an unconventional play and then he decided to call Rettenmaier's 156,000 three-bet from the big blind. Caroli then instantly called a 126,000 continuation bet on a Kd-Qh-9c flop and a 176,000 bet when the 6c landed on the turn. He then had an easy decision to make when Rettenmaier shoved for 220,000 on the arrival of the 7c on the river as he had made these ...