WSOP Online 2020: Roberto Romanello Becomes Ninth Player to Win Poker Triple Crown With Bracelet Victory in Event #39

Event #39: $1,500 No Limit Hold-em of the 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online was one of six bracelet events running on GGPoker and Natural8 on Sunday. This was also the second event at the series awarding points towards the Asian-friendly Dragon Asia Player of the Series Leaderboard.

The event kicked off at 13:00 (BST) or 7:30 PM (IST), and by the time the late registration period got over, the $1,500 buy-in event had pulled in 922 entries to accrue $1.31 Million in the prize pool. After more than twenty minutes of play, partypoker Ambassador and BetClever founder Roberto Romanello had all the chips in the game after busting Sweden’s Niklas Astedt heads-up. The victory gave Romanello his first WSOP gold bracelet and $212,613 in prize money.

The Welsh wizard has over $4.241 Million in live tournament scores, and with the bracelet victory has become the ninth player ever to complete the Poker Triple Crown, winning WPT and EPT Main Events along with a WSOP bracelet tournament. The first of the three titles he won at the 2010 EPT Prague Main Event for €640,000. He took down the WPT Bratislava Main Event in 2011 for €140,685. It took him almost a decade to earn the Triple Crown with a bracelet victory at the WSOP Online series.

Before this, Romanello had 37 WSOP cashes, amounting to a cumulative $676,929, and his best score was a third-place finish in Event #17: $1,000 NLHE at the 2016 WSOP for $142,926.

The event paid out 134 places with a min-cash worth $3,237. ‘mm1993’ and ‘MickeyM’ were eliminated on the money bubble.

Several poker superstars fell out empty-handed. This included names like Kristen Bicknell, Adrian Mateos, Joao Vieira, Anson Tsang, Mark Radoja, Manig Loeser, Dario Sammartino, Leon Tsoukernik, and Michael Soyza.

At the same time, many others like Artur Martirosian (15th for $8,759), Henri Buehler (22nd for $6,356), Luc Greenwood (25th for $6,356), Natural8 Ambassador Pete Chen (37th for $5,118), Alex Foxen (45th for $4,393), Jack Sinclair (58th for $4,393), Adam Owen (85th for $3,771), Conor Beresford (95th for $3,771), Hristo Anastassov (96th for $3,771), Markus Prinz (103rd for $3,237), Sergi Reixach (115th for $3,237), Danny Tang (123rd for $3,237), Mikhail Semin (124th for $3,237), Ali Imsirovic (126th for $3,237), and Jake Schindler (129th for $3,237) posted ITM finishes.

From the Indian contingent, ‘ThePunisherr’ (16th for $8,759), ‘bangbang1999’ (51st for $4,393), Event #33 fourth-place finisher and former bracelet winner ‘OBellaCiao’ (65th for $4,393), and ‘bapu’ (69th for $4,393) posted scores.

With the elimination of ‘amotan’ in 10th place for $12,070, the nine-handed final table was formed.

Niklas Astedt entered the FT in the chip lead with 7,028,000 while Aleksandr Trofimov (3,140,000) and the eventual winner Roberto Romanello (2,889,000) were second and third in chips, respectively.

Jeffrey Cormier (1,590,000), Orkhan Allahverdiyev (1,410,000), and India’s Ravali Krishna (1,160,000) were the shortest three stacks at the start of the final day`s play.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Niklas Astedt – 7,028,000
2. Aleksandr Trofimov – 3,140,000
3. Roberto Romanello – 2,889,000
4. Hannes Speiser – 2,617,000
5. Paul Barnes – 1,618,000
6. Thomas Cazayous – 1,593,638
7. Jeffrey Cormier – 1,590,000
8. Orkhan Allahverdiyev – 1,410,000
9. Ravali Krishna – 1,160,000

Final Table Recap

After doubling up the short-stacked Ravali Krishna, Jeffrey Cormier soon ran out of chips in ninth place.

Within the next five minutes, Orkhan Allahverdiyev was eliminated from the final table. Allahverdiyev’s was racing against Paul Barnes’ . The flop [13] improved Allahverdiyev’s chances of a double up before the turn gave Barnes a set of fours that held through on the river to derail the former in eighth place.

Next in line was India’s Ravali Krishna. He had entered the final table sporting the shortest stack, and after laddering two pay jumps, he fell at the hands of Romanello in seventh place.

Soon after returning from a chip-up break, Austria’s Hannes Speiser moved all-in with . Aleksandr Trofimov made the call with and flopped a set to eliminate Speiser in sixth place.

After this, Niklas Astedt, who held a commanding chip lead, won a few massive pots to climb up to 10 Million in chips. He took many hits as he doubled up Aleksandr Trofimov, Thomas Cazayous, and Roberto Romanello, but somehow managed to rebuild his stack.

Half an hour after Speiser’s departure, the only former WSOP bracelet winner on the final table, Thomas Cazayous was eliminated in fifth place.

After doubling up Romanello, Astedt sent Aleksandr Trofimov packing in fourth place. Astedt’s went on to hit a runner-runner broadway straight against Trofimov’s .

After some very swingy three-handed play, Paul Barnes bowed out in third place. In a blind v/s blind confrontation, Niklas Astedt’s pocket fives held through against Barnes’ pocket treys to set the heads-up play in motion.

Roberto Romanello was marginally ahead of Niklas Astedt at the start of the heads-up, but the latter used his aggression to claim the chip lead. It didn`t take long for the crucial decider hand to take place.

The hand in question saw Astedt four-bet shove , and Romanello made the call with . Romanello flopped a set to leave Astedt with crumbs.

Astedt doubled up once before the final hand of the tournament was dealt. Astedt’s got looked up by Romanello’s with the latter flopping a pair to win the bracelet!

Final Table Results (USD)

1. Roberto Romanello – $216,213
2. Niklas Astedt – $156,905
3. Paul Barnes – $113,866
4. Aleksandr Trofimov – $82,633
5. Thomas Cazayous – $59,966
6. Hannes Speiser – $43,518
7. Ravali Krishna – $31,581
8. Orkhan Allahverdyiev – $22,918
9. Jeffrey Cormier – $16,632

Content & Images Courtesy: WSOP.com and PokerNews.com

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