Simone Andrian wins the first San Reno event of the World Poker Tour

Simone Andrian – Photo credit: World Poker Tour

On June 11, Italian Simone Andrian was crowned champion at the First round the world of poker Main event of Sanremo. Andrian was awarded the grand prize worth $157,973 along with his first WPT First title after coming out with victory at the San Remo Casino, on the shores of the Ligurian Riviera. He also gets a $10,400 seat in the WPT World Championship at the Wynn Las Vegas in December.

This is the second career title for Andrian, who won a gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker Europe in 2021, when he won the field in a six-max no-limit hold’em event. Andrian also saw his career earnings cross the half-million mark with the win.

The €1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament attracted a field of 838 entries during the four initial flights. The total prize pool was set at $846,404 and the top 106 players took home at least $1,880. Day 2 saw all those players cash back and play through to the final table of nine. Notable crashes on Day 2 inclusive WPT Champions Club member Alessio Isaia (71st), e WPTDeepStacks Champion Sandro Pitzanti (20th).

Andrian was the chip leader when the final table started with nearly double the chips of his closest competitor. He stayed well ahead of the pack even before Andrian knocked out Ivan Kuziv in seventh place to keep total control of the lead. Famed American professional poker player Kevin O’Donnell was eliminated in fifth place, and the tournament player’s career winnings now well exceed $2 million.

Andrian landed his second punch at the final table when he eliminated Giussepe Zarbo in third place for a more than 2:1 chip lead in the heads-up final against Aristidis Theodoridis. The Greek player did most of the heavy lifting with eliminations at the final table by busting the majority of players on the final day of play to find his way into the bottom two in the standings.

Andrian increased his chip lead to 8:1 before Theodoridis made a timely double-up that extended the action into the 152nd hand before the title was decided. Theodoridis reraised all in with A8 hole, but was dominated by Ak held by Andrian. The final board was dealt K7768 to bring Andrian’s hand to flush. Theodoridis took home $96,705 in prize money as the runner-up for what was arguably the highest finish of his career.

Here is a look at the winnings awarded at the final table:

The next WPT First The event will take the tour to France from August 2-6 for a €1,100 buy-in Aix-En-Provence main event hosted by the Pasino Grand Casino. The full tournament series will run from August 1-6, and you can find the series schedule right here.