Last year Dato, who hails from Rotue, Italy, came in fourth place for $57,872 at WPT Venice. This time around Dato will attempt to win it all for $302,065. It helps he will take the chip lead of 1.5 million chips into the final table.
Day 4 of the 2012 WPT Venice was an abbreviated affair that took just over three hours to go from nine players to a final table of six.
Massimo Mosele was the first player to bust as he finally smashed K-Q into Dato’s A-J.
Mosele had been a rock in the tournament but finally got so short he had to make a move. He took down $18,133 for getting as far as he did.
Right behind Mosele was Jeremie Sochet who got extremely unlucky to get his pocket jacks cracked by Rinat Bogdanov’s K-J.
Sochet picked up $25,047 for busting in eighth place.
Wheeler Falls Off in Seventh
It proved to be a disastrous day for Wheeler who entered the day as one of the bigger stacks but simply couldn’t get anything going.
Finally Wheeler shoved with A-Q and got called by Dato with J-J. The board gave nothing Wheeler and he was out in seventh place.
Wheeler earned $33,683 for his efforts in Italy but was no doubt disappointed by getting so close the final table of six. The American pro famously finished second in a 2009 $1,500 WSOP for over $400k but he's still looking for his first major live win.
Instead Dato will take the chip lead into a final table of relatively unknown players.
Dane Simon Ravnsbaek, who is second in chips, is probably his biggest threat as he has over $300k in lifetime live tournament winnings.
Outside of Ravnsbaek and Rinat Bogdanov the entire final table is Italian so there’s a good chance the title will stay in the country.
The action resumes at 14:00 CET tomorrow. Keep your eye on the PokerListings news section for updates.
Here’s a look at the chip counts heading into the final table:
1. Andrea Dato – 1,591,000 2. Simon Ravnsbaek – 922,000 3. Rinat Bogdanov – 907,000 4. Alessandro Longobardi – 558,000 5. Andrea Carina – 347,000 6. Gianluca Trebbi – 343,000
Visit www.pokerlistings.com