/ Matthew Pitt / 07 February 2011 / Leave a comment
Mr T in action yesterday
Betfair sponsored pro, John Tabatabai is on course for another massive score as he finds himself seventh in chips with only 18 players remaining at the Venice stop of the World Poker Tour.
With increased competition from the various poker tours in the United States of America the World Poker Tour has struggled in recent years and has seen attendances dwindle, especially in American-based events. Nethertheless, since the decision was made to make the World Poker Tour (WPT) a true world poker tour, one that literally has stops around the world, the turnouts have increased, particularly in the various European destinations.
One such stop that has seen an increased audience is WPT Venice where 396 players took part in 2010 but this has grown by more than 24% as 523 hopefuls made their way through the doors of the beautiful Casino Muncipale di Venezia over the course of two official Day 1s.
Day 1a saw 208 players enter and 101 of them leave, whilst Day 1b's field grew to 305 of which only 118 players had chips remaining when play drew to a close. These 219 players then converged during Day 2 and only 57 if these survived to make it through to yesterday's Day 3.
Of these 57 players only 54 of them would be paid meaning it would be a short and disappointing day for three of them. One player to leave empty handed was the British pro John Eames, an extremely talented individual who has an amazing record in the various side events spread by the various tour organisers. He found himself all in holding Kd9d against the 7d7s of Nicolas Cardyn and when the board ran out Ad-4s-2s-Js-2h it was game over for Eames, who was eliminated in 57th place on the very first hand of the day!
The unfortunate bubble boy was Mario Spurio who may count himself a little unfortunate to bow out as he did. He got himself into a raising war with Alessia Isaia on a board reading Td-2d-Js whilst holding TcTh for middle set, with Isaia holding KdJd for top pair and a flush draw. One of the players said he had folded Ad5d, which took away some of Isaia's outs but another diamond found its way to the turn, the 4d completing Isaia's flush. The 5s on the river failed to improve Spurio to a boat and he left with only a round of applause to show for his efforts this past week.
Over the next few hours the players were being gradually whittled down but one man who seemed to be accumulating chips at an alarming rate was our hero, Tabatabai and he managed to do it whilst still flying under the radar so to speak. I personally know the reporter at WPT Venice and having spoke to him this morning he confirmed that Mr Tabatabai is playing extremely well and we both agreed he could be about to take down his first WPT event, something that would net hiom €380,000!
It has been a rather barren couple of years for Tabatabai and he will be the first to admit it. He burst onto the live poker scene when he finished as a runner-up to Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad in the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe Main Event back in 2007, a result that netted him £570,150. Since then he has won $127,584 for besting a field in the All Africa Poker Tournament in 2008 won the AUD$5,000 Heads Up Event at the 2009 Aussie Millions for AUD$100,000 and last year's solitary cash was for £17,318, awarded for his seventh place finish in the £2,500 Six Handed Event of the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe. Our hero has had some horrific luck when deep in tournaments over the past couple of years, here's to him running like God for another couple of days!
Top ten chip counts
1.) Alessio Isaia: 1,900,000
2.) Maxim Lykov: 1,534,500
3.) Sandor Mayer: 1,281,000
4.) Andrea Ferrari: 1,235,000
5.) David Vamplew: 1,178,500
6.) Alexandre Rodriguez: 1,167,500
7.) John Tabatabai: 1,143,000
8.) Allessandro Speranza: 991,000
9.) Camille Garrigues: 950,500
10.) Christian Fabri: 861,000
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