Andrea Benelli grew accustomed to being near the centre of attention when he made the final table in Warsaw late last year, earning €45,745 for his seventh place there, a table that also featured Dario Minieri.
This afternoon, Benelli found himself again on Minieri's table and again centre of attention. Although filming hasn't yet started, the television table set is already built and that table is at its centre. Minieri busted early, courtesy of Michael Fratty, but many of those chips have now found their way into the stack of Benelli, who may be our chip leader here with about 65,000.
Daniele Mazzia is another Italian of final table fame. He finished fourth in Barcelona last year, earning €351,000. Today, Mazzia is squaring up against Freddy Deeb, among others, and just took a pot from the pint-sized American when his A-K stayed the best hand all the way to the river on a king-high board.
That was worth something like 4,000 of Mazzia's 18,000 stack.
