Italian player Giovanni Safina finished in third spot at last week’s PartyPoker.com Premier League IV event in Las Vegas.
Monday 22nd February 2010
An online qualifier who earned his seat into the PartyPoker.com Premier League IV event for only $136 outlasted some of the poker world’s best players last week to take home $158,000.
Giovanni Safina is a 44-year-old lawyer from Palermo, Italy, and finished up in third spot at the week-long event held at the M Resort in Las Vegas to earn his share of the $1.5 million prize pool, which included $300,000 added by sponsor PartyPoker.com.
The event and its $476,000 top prize were won by 37-year-old French professional player David Benyamine after he took out Luke ‘FullFlush’ Schwartz heads-up. However, the runner-up did not go away empty handed and pocketed $258,000 for his efforts.
The first player to crash out of the final table was chip leader and PartyPoker.com World Open V champion Phil Laak. After dominating the group stages, Laak’s pocket tens fell to Benyamine's ace/king combination to see the Dublin-born player take away $146,000.
Next to go was Roland De Wolfe, who had earlier beat Ian Frazer heads-up, for $114,000 while Daniel Negreanu got the better of JC Tran before exiting in fourth for $132,000.
“This was a mind-blowing experience, truly amazing,” said Safina.
“I am happy with my result. It is just so fantastic that one online qualifier like me who invested so little money on an online site can get to such a big stage as this playing with the best players in the world for a whole week in the PartyPoker.com Premier League.”
Benyamine has not played in a tournament so far this year and had been relatively quiet on the circuit over the last twelve months. However, he is now firmly back in the spotlight and stated that he hoped his win would give him ‘momentum going forward’.
“It feels really good winning a title as I'm not used to it,” said Benyamine.
“The whole time I never thought about winning, I just wanted to do what I thought was right. I know people always say that when they win, but it's true. I really enjoyed the format and competition. I'm sure it will make great television.”
