Paul Tedeschi became a World Poker Tour champion when he triumphed in the WPT #01 Omaha High-Low Championship. It was a result that saw Tedeschi turn his $3,200 investment into a cool $92,105 after a three-handed deal involving Dan Shak and Ansii Kinttala.
Tedeschi is from Bastia, France but now calls London, UK home. The French star has live tournament cashes dating back to 2011 and has amassed $2,780,070, placing him 17th in France’s all-time money listings.
Two of Tedeschi’s largest prizes stem from playing in partypoker events. He finished second in the £5,000 buy-in Devilfish Cup, part of the partypoker WPT UK festival, and walked away with £150,000. two years later, Tedeschi was the fourth-place finisher in the $25,500 MILLIONS World event at the Caribbean Poker Party. That result banked Tedeschi a career-best $700,000.
Now he can brag about being a WPT champion, after winning the first of 12 massive Championship Events in the $100 million guaranteed WPTWOC.
“Winning a tournament is always a good feeling,” Tedeschi told the partypoker blog, “and becoming a WPT champion in a format other than No-Limit Hold’em was very exciting.”
The vast majority of Tedeschi’s live tournament cashes come from No-Limit Hold’em events, although there are a handful of mixed game results, including H.O.R.S.E, Seven Card Stud, and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low. Tedeschi may be best known for his Hold’em prowess, but he does actually play plenty of mixed games.
“I mainly play NLHE because we don’t have much choice in general. It’s the game that attracts the most people and generates the biggest prize pool s it’s hard to ignore the game. I have been playing in mixed games for a long time, especially in cash games or in WSOP events in Las Vegas.”
“I really enjoy playing formats other than NLHE because it can become quite repetitive. I decided to enter the WPT PLO8 Championship because it’s one of the games I enjoy the most. After 10 attempts to win a seat in satellites, I finally won my ticket!”
Key Hands On The Way To Victory
Tournament poker, by its very nature, is a swingy format. You can be cruising one minute only to find yourself short stacked. The opposite is also true. A key hand cropped up on Day 1 that, had it gone differently, we’d be writing about a different champion.
Tedeschi held A-A-X-X and his opponent K-K-X-X. The player with kings flopped top set, but Tedeschi spiked an ace on the river to win the hand, double up, and build a platform to climb from.
“Honestly, I would say over the course of the entire tournament I was very successful. I don’t remember losing any pots when all-in preflop. For that hand you mentioned, I don’t remember exactly if it was important in terms of chips, but I flopped the nut low draw with aces and some backdoor outs in a three-bet pot against top set. It was a setup and I think I scooped the pot with the last ace in the deck on the river. It’s an easy game when you run hot, hahaha!”
There was another key hand that stands out for Tedeschi, the one that eliminated Erik Dahlberg in sixth place. You can read about how he hit a flush on the river when against trip eights right here.
“This hand was very important, I would have been crippled if I had lost it.”
The final three players decided to strike a deal that brought the curtain down on the event. The deal secured $86,628 for Anssi Kintalla, $87,719 for Dan Shak, and $92,105 and the title of champion for Tedeschi.
“Making a deal was not in my plans but when Anssi asked to see the numbers Dan agreed to check too, so I changed my mind. It’s still a game with a lot of variance so it was better to smooth out the prize pool.”
All the final day’s action was streamed on our Twitch channel, Facebook, YouTube, and our partypoker.com website, complete with state-of-the-art cards-up coverage. The stream is saved so you can watch it back at your leisure, something Tedeschi has already done.
“After the tournament I watched the stream to look over some hands again. There was a notable hand against Joao Vieira where I was sure he was bluffing but I opted for a weak fold. I will know for next time, hahaha!”
Both the WPT and partypoker teams spent an age devising an online schedule that replicates an authentic live poker experience and one that remains true to the famous WPT brand. How does Tedeschi think we’ve done with that in mind?
“I really like the WPT schedule with a week dedicated to PLO8, a week dedicated to PLO, Hold’em, etc. The buy-ins for the Main Event are perfect to keep the tournament prestigious without having too big a field. There are a lot of satellites and everything is in play to enjoy a good experience, from my point of view. I’m hoping to see other mixed games like H.O.R.S.E. in the next edition.”
Real Names At The Table Are a Positive Feature
One of the ways WPT and ourselves are keeping matters true to poker is by having real names displayed at the table throughout the WPT events. This way you know who you are playing against at all times. Is Tedeschi a fan of real names on show?
“It depends. For me, real names are clearly a positive feature because I know directly who I am dealing with. It’s also better for online press and coverage and for readers to see the real players rather than a simple nickname. After that, I think some people prefer to play anonymously for different reasons. The good compromise is to make the real names visible only for major events.”
Talking of major events, Tedeschi plans to be present and correct in the other 11 Championships events.
“I’m not sure what other events I’ll play yet but I’ll try to enter the other $3,200 Championship Events and the $10,000 Main Event at the end to finish the series in style!”
Thank you to Tedeschi for taking the time to chat with our blog and, of course, a huge congratulations on becoming our first champion of the WPT World Online Championships.
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