If there is one person you can bet your bottom dollar will show up during the Prague Poker Festival it will be Roberto Romanello. It was, of course, the location where he achieved one of his greatest goals to date, when in 2010 he took the top prize in the European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague.
A World Poker Tour (WPT) victory in Slovakia followed, before things changed for Romanello, like it did for so many poker players at that time. The sinister side of Full Tilt Poker (FTP) was revealed and a lot of people started to struggle to keep pace with the costs of operating as a professional poker player.
Romanello was one of these people. Not that he doesn’t have a lot of money…in fact I am pretty sure the man has plenty of the stuff, but it’s more of an ethical thing for the man who gives everything he earns back to his family. There is no Roberto Romanello without his family and this includes every dime that shuttles between the poker economy and his house in Gorseinon.
So one assumes Romanello is a very goals orientated person?
“I am very much a goals orientated person. When I do something I always like to give 100%. At the moment I am juggling a lot of businesses with poker, so it can sometimes get tricky.
“We {family} have opened up a lot more take away restaurants and a lot of my focus has been on that, but once you get to a tournament like this {Prague Poker Festival} it all comes flooding back and you realize how much you are missing the game.
“It’s a tough game to be in, and to constantly keep putting up these buy-ins, but if I keep plugging away and doing well, or someone picks me up, then who knows? But if not I have plenty of work back home to keep me preoccupied.”
So what were his goals for 2013?
“At the start of 2013 poker was very fresh on my mind. There were a lot of unaccomplished things for me. There is still no double EPT champion and I am a big fan of the EPT’s and WPT’s, so that was one goal on my mind; the other goal is the Triple Crown and the summer was coming up. I was slowing down coming up to the series but as it approached I started to get that craving. It doesn’t matter how much I try to concentrate on other things in my life, poker is always there at the back of my mind. But once I am here I just put my heart on the table.”
How difficult is it to balance his business ventures with poker?
“Every tournament you go to contains excellent players. Everybody seems to know what they are doing these days. There is a higher end of the better players, and without being big headed, I have always put myself in that bracket. But it’s not easy to keep putting up these big buy-ins. You have to have some big scores or you have to sell pieces and I have never done that.
“I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I just haven’t had it in me to go around to people trying to sell pieces of my action. I have been raised differently – that if you don’t have it then you can’t afford it. So I would prefer to have a rich backer, or a great sponsorship deal. Those would be great goals.
“But I am very grateful for the times I have had in poker. I have been very fortunate in my life. I was sponsored by FTP for 3-4 years on the high end and was playing everything. I had a few big scores, and took a lot of money out of the game to invest with my family. So anything here on in is just a bonus for me.”
So how has his businesses been going in 2013?
“We were in the middle of creating two new shops when 2013 started. We opened them in Swansea and now have seven very busy shops. The Roma Fish bar is the brand and my parents have been in the game for over 40-years. Hard work pays off and I’m involved in that. I have that in my blood.”
And what about 2014?
“I have two new projects with my brothers. I am always up to something, always thinking, trying to keep my brain fresh. Multi Prize Pool (MPP) was one of those ideas and I am still negotiating a lot of things to do with that; but I don’t realize how much I miss poker until I sit down to play – I still love the game very much.
“I am lucky that when I do want to play I can. I came to Prague and have played 5-6 tournaments, but at the same time I need to be realistic. I work really hard, as do my family, and then I can come away and blow £30-40k when things don’t go right…and that’s a tough thing for me to deal with sometimes.”
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