Luca Pagano: leave my pizza alone

by Simon Young

Team PokerStars' Luca Pagano has been making steady, if unspectacular progress all day. He started with a respectable 49,000, and has built gradually without putting himself in a great deal of peril.

Now up to the 72,000 mark he had a great chance to double up, leaving him much more comfortable in his smart PokerStars shirt. He was in the small blind and looked down to find J-J - an appealing sight at this stage of a tournament.

The action folded around to Pat O'Callaghan, from Ireland, on the button, who raised to 40,000. Luca, sensing blood like a Roman gangster whose pizza had been stolen, moved all in for the kill, requiring 32,000 more from O'Callaghan. After a dwell for a moment or two, he called. Luca turned over first - the J-J - and O'Callaghan was not too pleased when he revealed his A-J.

Luca looked good, and the flop of 5-10-7 seemed to present no problems. But the turn of an and 8 and a 9 river made them both the jack high straight. Luca was not happy at having to split the spoils of such a monster pot, but he is a cool enough player to not let him affect him. O'Callaghan knew he had got lucky.

The luck of the Irish, eh? In Pat's case, yes. Not so Roy "The Boy" Brindley - another home favourite - who just won a huge pot, doubling through against Roland de Wolfe, with the best hand. All the money flew in before the flop, Roy with Q-Q and Roland A-K. The flop of A-Q-2 secured the spoils, the K turn made it interesting, but the 7 river was meaningless. Roy is now up to 150,000.