Tom Marchese Wins NAPT Venetian Main Event

Tom Marchese’s second live cash earned him his first major title

Sam “KingKobeMVP” Stein came into the NAPT Venetian main event final table with the chip lead against a lineup of experienced players and dominated play all day long, with one exception: the one player at the table who seemed to have Stein’s number the entire time was Tom Marchese. He moved all-in to win a substantial pot from Stein and David Paredesless than fifteen minutes into the final table, giving him some much needed breathing room after starting in fifth position. In the end the two would face off against each other for the championship and the day’s pattern held true with Marchese walking away the first ever NAPT champion.

Stein scored the first two knockouts of the day, winning a race against Eric Blair and then catching running cards for two pair with J-T to eliminate “Miami” John Cernuto and his A-5 from the tournament. He also managed to chop pots and catch longshot cards to take non-elimination hands, buffering his chip lead to a stunning half the total chips in play by the time of Thomas Fuller‘s elimination in fifth place with J-J against Dan Clemente‘s Q-Q. Then he took down Paredes in fifth place by catching a two outer with pocket jacks against the New Yorker’s pocket aces and it looked like the tournament might be all over.

Marchese mostly held on through the middle of the event, but he got the opening he needed after the dinner break when things turned around for Sam Stein. Twice Stein had pocket pairs of aces run down by flushes, and then Marchese won a race to knock Yunus Jamal out in fourth place. Good timing helped Marchese take down Clemente in third after the former Marine shoved with A-8 and Marchese woke up with pocket queens. That set up a heads-up match between the two young poker pros with Stein in the lead, 16 million to 10 million.

He started off by padding that lead but it only took two hands for Marchese to relieve him of all his chips. Marchese held top pair in the first hand and top set in the last, and both times the previously untouchable Stein called down with what ended up being fourth pair. The second mistake left him with $522,306 in winnings – the tournament’s runner-up prize. Meanwhile Marchese, whose only previous live cash was third place at last month’s Borgata Winter Open, walked away with $827,648, the first ever NAPT champonship, and the satisfaction of having very successfully moved from online poker to live play.