Federico Roberto Outlasts Field of 2,154 to Win 2022 MSPT Venetian Title

The second Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian event of the summer saw a massive field of 2,154 entries turn out for the $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament, blowing away the $1.5 million guarantee to build a final prize pool of $2,078,610. After three starting flights and two more days of action, that sea of players was narrowed down to just one champion: Federico Roberto.

The Argentinian earned $294,327 for the win, the largest score on his live tournament resume by far. His previous top cash was a $29,348 payday earned as the fifth-place finisher in the 2015 Circuito Argentino de Poker main event.

Federico also secured 1,080 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, but it was sufficient to move him into 161st place in the 2022 POY race sponsored by Global Poker.

The final day of this event began with 16 players remaining and Roberto in fourth chip position. Plenty of big names made deep runs in this event only to fall short of the final day, including 2015 World Series of Poker ‘Colossus’ champion Cord Garcia (38th – $7,275), Stanley Lee (22nd – $12,368), and two-time bracelet winner John Phan (12th – $24,632).

James Gilbert was the first to fall at the official final table, with his pocket nines posing a preflop race to the A-K of Joshua Suyat. Gilbert, a WSOP bracelet winner, earned $32,011 as the ninth-place finisher.

Suyat scored another knockout with A-K, this time beating out the J-10 of Richard Kirsch (8th – $39,701) to narrow the field to seven contenders.

Roberto scored his first elimination of the final table when his pocket tens outran the A-K of Quy Dao. The board double paired by the end, but Roberto’s tens remained best to send Dao home with $49,887 for his seventh-place showing.

Jimmy Setna got his last chips in ahead, with pocket kings leading the pocket threes of 2018 WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee main event winner Jake Bazeley. A three on the turn gave Bazeley a set, though, which improved to a full house on the river to send Setna packing in sixth place ($62,358).

Despite scoring a couple of early bustouts, Suyat was the next to hit the rail. He ran 7-6 suited into the pocket aces of Roberto and found no held on a queen-high runout to finish fifth ($85,223). With that, Roberto took a healthy chip lead into four-handed play.

Robert Shega overtook that lead by busting Valentin Oberhauser in third place ($114,324). All of the chips went in on the turn with a board of Q657. Oberhauser showed Q10 for top pair, while Shega held Q5 for queens and fives. The on the end changed nothing and the field shrunk to just three contenders.

Shega extended his advantage when he opened to 1,000,000 on the button with AK and Bazeley three-bet shoved for 8,000,000 with A8. Shega called and held on a 10756K runout. Bazeley earned $153,817 as the third-palce finisher.

Shega entered heads-up play with just shy of a 2:1 lead over Roberto. He stretched that lead even further in the early going, but Roberto scored a crucial double-up with his J-7 suited besting the A-4 of Shega to turn the tables.

Soon after that, all of the chips wen in with Shega holding K2 facing the A8 of Roberto. Theboard ran out K109QJ to give Roberto broadway on the river for the win. Shega took home $219,085 as the runner-up.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo via @msptpoker on Twitter.

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