World Poker Tour Ink Deal With Tilt Events: Venice and San Remo Benefit

World Poker Tour Ink Deal With Tilt Events: Venice and San Remo Benefit

World Poker Tour Ink Deal With Tilt Events: Venice and San Remo BenefitWorld Poker Tour Tilt Events have inked a deal that will see the two working together to produce World Poker Tour National Series events in the Italian cities of Venice and San Remo.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) continues to place emphasis on their European National Series model after agreeing a deal with the Italian poker industry event organizer Tilt Events.

The pair, who has worked together before, will host three WPT National Series events in 2015. Two of them will be held in the Casino di Venezia Ca’Vendramin Calergi, in the floating city of Venice, and a third event will be held in the Casino di San Remo, in San Remo.

The Italian poker operator Gioco Digitale will sponsor the events. A brand that was acquired, in 2009, by WPT owners bwin, one year before they merged with partypoker to create Bwin.party Digital Entertainment.

Tilt Events founder Paolo Ruscalla commented: “We are delighted to have extended our agreement with WPT bringing the global brand to our local Italian players at an affordable buy-in level. At Tilt Events we have an experienced team which treats every aspect of the game professionally but also ensures the players engage in the full fun WPT experience.”

The Gioco Digitale WPT National Venice returns to the poker calendar 17-29 April 2015. It consists of 14 events, with buy-ins ranging from €35-€500, and a €990 Main Event sitting on top of the cake. Qualifiers for the event will be made available at the Italian online poker site GD Poker.

The second event will be held in San Remo, 12-15 June 2015. It marks the WPT’s first foray into the Mare Blue area. Once again, a €990 Main Event will be the star attraction.

It’s great news for the tiny Italian city. The European Poker Tour (EPT) dropped San Remo from their Season 11 schedule in favor of a move to Malta. In a reversal of attitude the WPT no longer hosts a Maltese main event stop, but did host a successful WPT Deepstacks event there in February.

The final event will be held Oct 29 – Nov 1. Once again, it comes from the beautiful city of Venice, with a second visit to the oldest casino in the world: Casino di Venezia Ca’Vendramin Calergi.

The WPT first visited Venice in Season IX when Sven-Ragnar Arstrom defeated the reigning World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champion, Martin Jacobson, in heads-up action, to take the $523,388 first prize. WPT Commentator Mike Sexton came closest to winning a WPT title when he finished third in Season XI; Rocco Palumbo took the title.

Alessio Isaia, Rinat Bogdanov and Edoardo Alescio have all been victorious in WPT Venetian events, but none can match the muster of Andrea Dato. The Italian made two final tables in Season X, finishing third and fourth, before capturing a title in Season XII with victory over Sam Trickett.

The triumvirate of events also marks the first liaison between Tilt Events, and the WPT, since former partypoker employees Giovanni Rizzo, and Kara Scott, joined Tilt Events as ambassadors. Expect to see both of them involved in the three events in some degree.