British pro Will Kassouf has come away from Venice with one of the biggest pay days of the festival without ever reaching the final table. Kassouf drew the only €50,000 ticket in the Treasure Hunt at La Notte Degli Assi, the poker festival that returned to the Casino di Venezia from 11 to 19 October, PokerNews reported on Friday.
That bonus put him close to the €56,600 paid for third place in the Main Event, even though he went out on Day 2.
How the Treasure Hunt worked
The €1,000,000 guaranteed Main Event drew 2,630 entries across ten Day 1 flights. Organisers set aside €200,000 of that guarantee for a separate prize draw, called the “Caccia al Tesoro”, with 50 tickets on offer.
The top five stacks at the end of each Day 1 flight earned a ticket. Players could enter several flights and collect more than one ticket, although only their biggest stack carried through to Day 2. Every player who bagged chips at the end of a flight was guaranteed at least €900 from the draw, and prizes ran all the way up to a single €50,000 top award.
Re-entry was also unusual by modern standards. The first four flights cost €400 with €300 rebuys, while the remaining six cost €600 with €400 rebuys.
Kassouf’s late run into the draw
Kassouf left it until the final opportunity. He played the Last Chance flight alongside 187 other entries and finished with 2,900,000 chips from a 200,000 starting stack, fourth on that flight’s leaderboard and inside the top five that qualified for a ticket.
The draw took place on Sunday 18 October, shortly before Day 2 began at 2pm. Kassouf’s ticket was the one matched to the €50,000 prize. According to PokerNews, the €30,000, €20,000 and €15,000 prizes went to Day 1 chip leaders.
For UK fans, Kassouf is best known for his table talk and his deep runs at the World Series of Poker. His trip to Italy adds to a strong autumn for British players on the European circuit, after Jonathan Rees won the partypoker Castellón Main Event earlier this month.
Sabato takes the Main Event title
The Main Event itself went to Italy’s Lorenzo Sabato. He started the final day as chip leader with 83,600,000 and struck a heads-up deal with Emanuele Biscaro. PokerNews lists Sabato on €114,500 and Biscaro on €98,500, with Enrico Esposito third for €56,600. The final hand saw Sabato’s Q♥J♦ beat Biscaro’s K♥6♥.
A familiar stage for live poker
The Casino di Venezia, which claims a history going back to 1638, sits in a Renaissance palace on the Grand Canal. It hosted WPT Venice between 2009 and 2013, and PokerNews billed this year’s festival as the return of live poker to the venue.
The Treasure Hunt borrowed the surprise element that has made mystery bounty tournaments so popular, but rewarded strong Day 1 stacks rather than knockouts. Whether other European festivals copy the format remains to be seen.
