Max Pescatori Gets His Gold: The Italian Pirate Continues to Pillage the Poker World

Max Pescatori would have done well when pirates roamed the seas, sacking and robbing the way pirates conquered distant lands. Like the brigands of old, Pescatori has unflinching nerve and a conqueror's mentality. Just ask any of the players he faced during his road to victory and his first World Series of Poker bracelet. Pescatori's win over 1,290 players in event No. 13, $2,500 no-limit hold'em, has fulfilled his dreams of becoming a champion.



He will quickly tell you it was possibly the greatest experience of his life, except for one. In a feat of near equal magnitude, Pescatori's home country, Italy, won the World Cup by penalty kicks only minutesbefore Pescatori's WSOP final-table appearance. According to Pescatori, with Italy making the finals, he thought the stars had aligned for him and that it was his turn to enjoy the WSOP spotlight. He was right.



Nicknamed the "The Italian Pirate" because of his rampaging ways and often-worn skullcap, Pescatori has worked his way up the poker ranks over the last few years.



He has quietly shown himself to be one of the game's best grinders by cashing in 65 tournaments over the last three years, earning 11 WSOP cashes, collecting more than $1.5 million in tournament earnings, and finishing in the top 10 in Card Player's 2005 Player of the Year rankings.



Based on these solid results, his winning a bracelet seemed like a more realistic possibility than Italy winning a World Cup. Just don't say that to Pescatori, who will tell you that he almost literally bleeds the colors of the Italian flag and his native home.



Growing Up, Pescatori Style



Life has always been an adventure for Pescatori. Born and raised in Milan, Italy, this 30-something poker pro grew up loving two very different sports, soccer and poker. Fortunately, by the time he realized he wasn't going to be a striker on Italy's national team, he was already skilled in poker. Having been introduced to cards by family friends while on vacations, he took to the game almost immediately.



"A couple of my parents' friends came along, and I started watching them play cards. I asked them to teach me the game, and I started playing with them and won some money. We were playing a type of gin and poker game together. It was fun, but my mom didn't really approve, and made me give back all the money that I had won. She got really mad, but I think that made me want to play even more. I think I was about 7 or 8," he said.



Besides earning a few bucks, he saw the opportunity to get some well-earned respect that many kids would have to wait until adulthood to receive, Pescatori said. "I loved playing card games with adults, who treated me well. It was great. They taught me everything and didn't care that I won. It was so exciting."



Although his mother didn't approve of his new hobby, Pescatori continued to learn as much as he could about the game. "I've been playing for many years. During school, I used to play all the time for fun and money. Also, I played a lot on vacations. My family would go to the beach while I stayed in the hotel and played cards," he said.



Life, however, wasn't all just fun and games. At 18, he was required by national law to serve in the military. Not one to complain about his situation, Pescatori believes that he came out a more well-rounded individual and a better poker player from his stint in the military police.



While doing his duty for his country, he also did in his fellow poker-playing army buddies. "We played during the three-month training, as well. It was so tough. I think I lost 40 pounds in four weeks. I was superfit. At night, when everyone else went to sleep, we would play. I remember a couple of times when we nearly got caught," he said.



Although he loved his poker, Pescatori was unfamiliar with the possible life of a poker professional and remained grounded by the different jobs he had to take to make ends meet. "I had been working several jobs to get by. The one that I'm probably most proud of was writing for a video game magazine. We got video games before they came out and tested them. It was interesting to see how they worked. I've always been a huge fan of video games. It really paid off in the long run, because it taught me how to think in different ways."



Yo-Ho-Ho, Poker is the Life for Me



Through his father's hard work, Pescatori saw that life could be a very tough road if people let it be. He quickly learned that people need to have fun and balance work in a way that won't be suffocating. Taking this concept to heart, he began trying to figure out where his future would take him.



"One of the things that many people miss is the experience of working many different jobs and experiencing different situations, especially rich kids," he said. "In general, they don't have a real understanding of how difficult it is to make money and to work. They don't really appreciate it, so they don't really succeed as well as other players who understand money's value."



According to Pescatori, his family wasn't poor, but they had trouble with things like getting hot water. His father worked long hours and took only three or four days of vacation twice a year, so that he could pay for his son's private school and pay for a beach vacation for the young Max and his mother.



The life lessons Pescatori has learned have given him a balanced philosophy that now spills from his life into his poker play, giving him piece of mind when others just find tilt. "When I started to work, I did everything. I even put caps on hairspray, but that didn't last longer than a day. When I look at poker and how I make money, I can't complain. Sure, you can complain about a bad beat, but it passes. I know that if I play well and I'm having a difficult month, the next month will work out in my favor. You just can't be negative. I always try to stay positive. I think people need to really understand that if you do something you love, it's one of the best jobs in the world," Pescatori said.



After holding several jobs and eventually deciding that he wanted to take poker seriously, Pescatori benefited from the advice of Italy's only other WSOP bracelet winner, Valter Farina. "I met him at his restaurant and he introduced me to the poker lifestyle and showed me how pros live. His advice really helped me realize that was what I wanted to do for a living," he said.



Head West, Young Man



After deciding he was going to try to become a professional poker player, Pescatori made his way to the United States and Las Vegas around 1994, and decided upon arrival to use all of his talent to become one of the game's elite players. Starting in limit cash games, playing $8-$16 and $15-$30 when he was having a good run, it wasn't long before he was being noticed by the pros on the poker circuit.



"When I started playing poker professionally, I was playing limit hold'em," he stated. "Limit is a game in which you need to log a lot of hours to learn. Now, it might be easier because nobody really plays it anymore, but before, when the pros were playing, it really took a long time to learn to master the game. About four or five years ago, I was playing $100-$200. Now, that's nothing. Back then, it was one of the biggest games at Bellagio. Either mixed games or $100-$200 limit games were the big deal back then."



During that period of time, Pescatori continued his quest for poker knowledge, playing numerous forms of poker and becoming an excellent mixed-games player. Choosing a diverse poker path, he has earned cashes in numerous tournaments and WSOP events featuring no-limit hold'em, limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha, seven-card stud, and Omaha eight-or-better. But as times changed and the game shifted more toward no-limit hold'em events, he began making the transition from being a cash-game player to a tournament champion.



According to Pescatori, there is a big difference between tournament action and cash games. "One of the things about tournaments is that you can be really good and still go a long time without a cash. It doesn't matter how well you play, especially because of the increasing blinds structure of many of today's bigger tournaments."



While terrorizing the cash games, Pescatori and fellow Italian poker star Marco Traniello developed a friendship that would help change his game forever. Pescatori said, "Once I started meeting bigger players, my game started going to the next level. Thanks to Marco Traniello, I got to meet Jennifer Harman. She clearly made a difference in my game. After I met her, I went from a $15-$30 to $30-$60 player to an $80-$160 player after only a little while. It was not so much because she sat there and told me to do this, this, and this, but more because she just opened my mind to poker. She taught me different ways of thinking and how to look at each situation independently. I learned a little bit by talking to her about hands, but more from watching her play, even if it was a mixed game."



Later, Max met Todd Brunson and developed a very successful partnership. "Two years ago, I played in my first World Series, and was staked by Todd," Pescatori said. "Thanks to Marco, he decided to invest in me, and we became really good friends. We then began talking about hands and our play. I think he knew he was getting a good deal. He had the eye of a good businessman. I hope I made him proud."



Full Speed Ahead



With Pescatori's confidence at an all-time high, he entered the 2006 WSOP with big expectations and played with a fierce determination that almost landed him a bracelet in event No. 6, $2,000 no-limit hold'em.



According to Pescatori, a bad beat at the hands of eventual champion Mark Vos ended his hopes of winning a bracelet. "I was the chip leader in this event with more than 1,900 players. I came in for the second day and Mark Vos moved all in on me. I looked down at my hand and saw two kings. He had me covered by one chip. I called. He had A-4 offsuit. He made a full house and crushed me," Pescatori said.



Despite suffering a tough beat, Pescatori was confident that he was playing the best poker of his life, and was confident that if he kept pushing ahead, he would come home with WSOP gold.



He would have another chance at winning a WSOP title in event No. 13, $2,500 no-limit hold'em. His confidence was now bolstered by the victory of the Italian national soccer team.



"It was amazing to me that the day Italy had a finals match, I also had a final table. Over the last few years, Italy has made the finals about once every 12 years. What are the chances that I make a final table on the same day? Then you have to think about the mathematical chances that we both win," Pescatori said.



Another sign came from close friend Scott Fischman, who called prior to the tournament's final table to wish Pesctori luck. "He knows how much work I put into my game, and he said it was my destiny to win. I guess in the back of my mind, I knew this was it," he said.



Charged up by Italy's success, Pescatori used every poker trick in his repertoire to claw his way back from the brink. At one point, he was a 7-to-1 underdog in chips, but he never doubted that it was his time. "We were threehanded and I knew that Justin Peche was not afraid of making second. He really wanted to win, and that played in my favor. If he just sat back and didn't do anything, it would have made it a lot harder on me and forced me to make some risky moves. He raised with a lot of hands, and Anthony (Reategui) called because he also wanted to win outright. That gave me the possibility of waiting for one hand and moving in on both of them. What I really came to realize was that these people were crazy," he said.



Pescatori's biggest sign that he would emerge victorious finally came when he faced Reategui heads up and hit the "Doyle." "I looked down at my cards on the first hand and saw the 10-2 of clubs. I was playing for Doyle's Room during the WSOP, and I even had 10-2 black on the shirts I was wearing. I thought to myself, here is destiny. Italy doesn't miss a penalty kick, which has never happened before, and I'm sitting with Doyle's hand," Pescatori said.



"So, I made a small raise, as you would do with two suited cards if you're playing heads up. I flopped a flush and bet it. I knew he hit top pair with the J-4-3 of clubs flop. He made two pair on the turn and I bet it. He came over the top and I moved all in. He had top two pair and the overcard flush draw. I knew he wasn't going to hit it. From there on, I just pounded Anthony over and over and over, and really took the title away from him," Pescatori stated.

Sweet Victory



On the final hand, Pescatori's destiny was completed. After the flop showed the 10 7 6, Reategui moved all in with his Q 10. Although having only a gutshot draw, Pescatori showed no fear with his J 8 and went in for the kill.



"When it came to the last hand and the 9 hit for my gutshot straight, it was a feeling that I will probably never experience again. I threw myself into the crowd, which had some of my Italian, Japanese, and American friends in it. It was truly the greatest day of my life," he said.



For Pescatori, his victory at the WSOP is second only to the dramatic changes that have taken him from Italy to the United States. "I couldn't have written a better story. The whole story of my life since I came to Las Vegas is pretty bizarre, and was like a lot of my Vietnamese friends' experiences. My situation wasn't as difficult as theirs, of course, but things weren't easy. Coming here to the States and becoming a professional poker player is amazing. Last year I finished ninth in the Card Player Player of the Year race. This year, because Italy and I had a chance to win on the same day, it was unbelievable. It's never going to be beaten. That was the best day of my life. No matter what happens in the future, that day will never change," he said.



According to Pescatori, it's a close call as to which is more important to him, Italy's World Cup victory or his WSOP bracelet. "The bracelet wins by penalty kicks. If there was no money involved, it would be very close, but since there was a lot of money involved, the bracelet," Pescatori chuckled.



So today, the horizon looks bright for this modern-day pirate. "I just think I'll have more confidence in my game now. I think it will be easier to win a second one. Granted, the fields are big, but I don't have the pressure on me anymore. I'll just go on in my life knowing that there will never be another day like that one, but I'm really looking forward to the future and winning another one," Pescatori concluded.

Pescatori's Golden Nuggets



On Winning: Surely, you have to have talent. If you look at CardPlayer.com,you can see that there are plenty of people who win tournaments, then disappear. These are players who know how to play, but don't have what it takes to be a winner in the long run. It's more than just one run of good cards in a single tournament to be a consistent winner.



On playing multiple games or becoming a specialist: It would frustrate me to play only one game. Plus, I get bored easily. I guess it is better if you can focus on one game if you can do that day after day, but to really keep learning, you've got to try to learn new things.



On having a mentor: It is essential. That doesn't mean you have to have him teach you step by step, but you need to learn from players at a higher level. People like Negreanu and Lindgren hung out and shared poker tips when they were coming up in limits. They were always talking about the game. I think that's why they play so well. You need to talk to others to see things that you might miss.



On playing a lot of small buy-in events: It's different than it used to be. With big buy-in events, the same top players would play the field, and there would be maybe 50 percent amateurs. The smaller events consisted of 10 percent pros and 90 percent amateurs. I guess many of the pros now realize that you can't bluff players in small buy-in tournaments. It's a different way to play.



On accumulating chips in big tournaments: I've learned from the bigger players that even though it's a big tournament, you still have to take it one step at a time. You have to look and see who will double you up, and make your move. Don't worry about being the chip leader right away, and take it one hand at a time.



On becoming a poker pro: Keep your day job. Pretend that you are a professional player for a couple of years, but still work. Once you don't have a job, it really changes your mindset. It took a few months for me to learn to deal with the fact that I wasn't receiving a salary. Start playing on the side, and after you do that, move up slowly. Definitely don't try it if you have kids or a new wife. It's way too much pressure. It's too difficult, and there are really few chances to succeed.

Max Pescatori's Tournament Trail


One thing that can be said when speaking of Max Pescatori is that he is as diverse as his tournament finishes. With 65 cashes in the last three years and more than $1.5 million in tournament winnings, the Italian Pirate has proven to be a formidable opponent no matter what the game is, and is considered a viable threat in every tournament he enters.