{"id":2673,"date":"2010-02-11T06:43:48","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T05:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2019-11-01T11:16:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:16:28","slug":"partypoker-qualifier-giovanni-safina-wins-the-100000-premier-league-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/partypoker-qualifier-giovanni-safina-wins-the-100000-premier-league-seat.html","title":{"rendered":"PartyPoker qualifier Giovanni Safina wins the $100,000 Premier League seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2694\" title=\"Giovanni Safina Partypoker\" src=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Giovanni-Safina-partypoker.jpg\" alt=\"Giovanni Safina Partypoker\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>One of the Premier League Main Event seats worth $100,000 was awarded tonight. Sixteen PartyPoker qualifiers were in with a chance but only the following six made it to the final table. These were the starting stacks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Talal Shakerchi\u00a0320k<\/li>\n<li>Miguel Proulx\u00a0200k<\/li>\n<li>Giovanni Rizzo\u00a0200k<\/li>\n<li>Giovanni Safina 190k<\/li>\n<li>Scott Wellenbach\u00a0179-0k<\/li>\n<li>Paul Riggott\u00a0140k<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Scott Wellenbach, the Canadian play money qualifier, went out in the 6th place getting knocked out by Giovanni Safina\u2019s pair of tens.<\/p>\n<h3>\u201cBest $52 spent in my life\u201d<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Paul Riggott was the next to go. Paul got into the playoffs by spending $52 on a satellite at PartyPoker. \u201cBest $52 spent in my life\u201d says Paul. Paul started as a short stack at the final table but with help of few good hands including AK and KK he got himself into a better position.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">But after the initial run of good starting hands, Paul went card dead and had to go all-in preflop with Q-7. Fellow Brit Talal Shakerchi called with 9-10 and hit the straight to knock Paul out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Talal Shakerchi himself was the next one to go. Talal picked up 9-10 of diamonds and went all in preflop. Miguel Proulx called with K-Q. The flop came A-J-9 giving Talal a pair but Miguel a straight draw. Eight on turn didn\u2019t change the situation but 10 on river made Talal the second pair but Miguel the straight leaving the former chip leader in 4th position.<\/p>\n<h3>Giovanni knocks out Giovanni<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Two Italian Giovannis and one Canadian Miguel were now left to fight for the $100,000 Premier League Main Event seat. Miguel qualified via the Palladium Lounge VIP Leaderboard while both Giovannis qualified via Italian-only satellites.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Giovanni knocks out Giovanni. Giovanni Rizzo, from Parma, goes out third after going all-in with K-3 but was called by Safina\u2019s pocket aces. There was no help on the board for Rizzo who said &#8220;It is the winner takes it all, only first one can win. But I am really hoping for a sponsorship at this point&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3>Heads-up: Italy versus Canada<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">We were then heads-up for the $100,000 seat in the Premier League Main Event.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Giovanni Safina &#8211; Palermo, Italy<\/li>\n<li>Miguel Proulx &#8211; Quebec, Canada<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">The heads-up didn\u2019t last too long. Miguel in small blind called with A-2, was raised by Giovanni with A-9, and Miguel then pushed all-in. Giovanni called the all-in. 3 hearts came on flop giving Giovanni a 9 high flush draw, Miguel hit one of his two-outers on turn for a pair of deuces, but the 7 of hearts on river decided it all in favour of the Sicilian.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Miguel said: &#8220;It was a nice experience. It is not every day that you get to play on TV and meet the offline pros. If I had to do it again, I would do it in a heartbeat&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Giovanni Safina said: &#8220;I feel very very good. I am very happy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Giovanni will now play in the main event of the Premier League alongside world-famous players like David Benyamine, Daniel Negreanu and PartyPoker&#8217;s Tony G.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the Premier League Main Event seats worth $100,000 was awarded tonight. Sixteen PartyPoker qualifiers were in with a chance but only the following six made it to the final table. These were the starting stacks: Talal Shakerchi\u00a0320k Miguel Proulx\u00a0200k Giovanni Rizzo\u00a0200k Giovanni Safina 190k Scott Wellenbach\u00a0179-0k Paul Riggott\u00a0140k Scott Wellenbach, the Canadian play<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/partypoker-qualifier-giovanni-safina-wins-the-100000-premier-league-seat.html\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2182,300],"tags":[146,51,205],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38376,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions\/38376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}