Grazie: Italian takes poker tourney

Grazie: Italian takes poker tourney by William Ferchland for Tahoe Daily Tribune In the longest final table in circuit history, the World Series of Poker wrapped up at 3:15 a.m. Thursday at Harveys Casino Resort with the top prize of $542,360 going to a 39-year-old property investor who had a pair of 10s. Jeffrey Lisandro battled against Phil Ivey for 2 1Ú2 hours in a 12-hour, 35-minute game, edging the 28-year-old who looked like he might take the grand pot with bluffs and persistence, and a pair of deuces in the end. "Phil Ivey dominated the table," said player Jonathan Shecter, who placed fourth and received $131,480. "He played a lot of hands and won a lot of hands. It was surprising because when it finally ended he ended up bluffing." Steven Schorr, who holds the lengthy title of manager of poker, keno and the sports and racing book at Harveys, was also surprised at how the No-Limit Texas Hold 'em Championship event turned out. Schorr said. "All along it looked like Ivey was chipping away at (Lisandro) but on all the big hands Lisandro would always show a better hand than Ivey," Schorr said. Both Lisandro and Ivey checked out of their rooms early at Harveys, but the excitement was still in the air as the casino hosted the fourth stop of one of the most well-known and televised tournaments. Preparations at Harveys began four months in advance, with extra chips, extra chairs and extra dealer buttons being ordered from a checklist of some 400 items for the 16-day event, Schorr said. Forty-eight poker tables were used but that number will decrease to 21 during summer. Various amateur tournaments and signings with poker champions Doyle Brunson and Chris Ferguson lead into the grand event, staged in one of the convention rooms at Harveys. The room was needed. Cameras, lights, microphones, bleachers able to house the rumps of 150 audience members, a control room and a table for the $1.6 million in total prize money took up the space. "They wanted a controlled environment for television," said John Packer, director of public relations for both Harrah's Lake Tahoe and Harveys. The next stop for the World Series of Poker is New Orleans, followed by the finale at Las Vegas. The circuit will be aired on television with Stateline's dramatics expected to arrive in July, marking a possible bonanza during the summer tourism season. "I think we'll get a lot of (public relations) mileage out of that," Packer said. "A lot of people throughout the country still don't know what a Lake Tahoe is." Tony Prestigiacomo, from Genoa, took a swipe at the table after finishing first in the first event of Lake Tahoe's circuit. The telecommunications business owner finished 17th but seemed to be in more awe by the professionals around him than his winnings. "It was truly a great experience playing with all these folks we see on TV," Prestigiacomo said. "I'm not going to turn pro, I'm not going to quit my day job but I'm going to keep playing," he added. Shecter approaches his poker play as a hobby and keeps it apart from his profession as a media entrepreneur. He said he'll use his winnings to enter more tournaments in his home town, Las Vegas. " Like business, in poker it takes money to make money," he said. The previous record for longest final table game was set in February of this year when the World Series of Poker was at Harrah's Rincon San Diego Poker Tournament, according to Nolan Dalla, the tournament's media director. "The quality of play was exceptional," Dalla said. "When you have really good players they tend to be cautiously aggressive and won't make the mistakes lower-caliber players will." Many, including Dalla, at Harveys will be wondering how editors will turn the roughly 13 hours of play into a one-hour television show. "It will be interesting to see what they do with it," Dalla said.