The first-ever Global Poker Masters World Cup was completed late last night. The two-day event, which was held at the Portomaso Casino in Malta, a venue that also hosts the EPT European Poker Tour Season 11 Malta, gathered together the current top four players (according to the GPI ranking) of each of the following countries – the USA, the UK, Canada, Germany, Russia, France, Ukraine, and Italy.
Each of the above-mentioned eight teams had also one wild card player, someone who did not necessarily rank higher in the GPI ranking, but yet was considered good enough to represent his or her country at this major event.
And last night, it became clear that it was Team Italy that won the competition, facing Team Russia in a total of five heads-up games.
The players from the winning team were Mustapha Kanit, who currently has 2,905.47 points in the GPI ranking, Dario Sammartino with 2,836.10 points, Andrea Dato with 2,352.09 points, Giuliano Bendinelli with 1,991.13 points, and last but not least, Rocco Palumbo, who was Italy’s wild card. Palumbo is currently taking the twelfth place in the GPI ranking for his country and has a total of 1,297.88 points.
Day 2 of the Global Poker Masters was pretty eventful as all quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals took place. Of all eight teams, seven returned for this final day, after Team UK was eliminated on Day 1. Team USA had scored the most points on the first day of the event and due to this, it qualified directly to the semifinal stage of the competition. The players from the other six teams faced opponents in heads-up plays, so as those who were to continue to the semifinals to be determined.
Eventually, Team Italy had to face Team Russia at the finals. The first team started this closing stage of the event with a major chip lead after it had eliminated Team USA in the semifinals. Team Italy had a total of 404,900 chips against its opponent’s 148,100.
The final hand in the event occurred in Level 13, with Mustapha Kanit facing Russian poker pro Vladimir Troyanovskiy, who currently tops his country’s ranking with 2,875.13 points. Kanit had [Kd][Js] and his opponent had [Jx][10x]. The board ran out [Ks][6c][10d][3s][7c]. At this point, Troyanovskiy checked and Kanit shoved all in. His opponent called and it became clear that Team Italy was the champion of the first-ever Global Poker Masters World Cup.
