Italy's Christopher Campisano has taken down Event #3 of the 2024 WSOP Europe festival, €1,350 Mini Main No-limit Hold'em, to earn €213,950 and his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet. Campisano, who once worked as a dealer at the WSOPE's host venue, King's Resort in Rozvadov, Czechia, came from well behind during heads-up play to become the WSOP's newest bracelet winner.
Campisano's road to the win on Saturday evening was an unlikely tale. He began the eight-player final table mired among several shortish stacks, all of whom started well behind the dominant early leader, Belgium's Frederic Marechal. Marechal started the day with a stack well over double that of his closest competitor and appeared to be cruising to his own first bracelet triumph for most of the day.
That script was scuttled in the late going, after Campisano erased a nine-to-one deficit during their heads-up duel. But it took an unexpected runout earlier in the day for Campisano to be around to win the Mini Main. Following two early bustouts and with Campisano the remaining shortest stack, he was all in before the flop with 
against Xiaohua Yang's 
.
The flop brought not one but two treys, and Campisano collected the double to remain in the battle. From there he rode a rush of cards all the way to a sizeable lead over Marechal and the eventual third-place finisher, Greece's Dimitrios Anastasakis. Marechal busted Anastasakis to bring on heads-up play, though Campisano still held a slight edge.
Huge momentum flip defines duel
The early portion of heads-up action were all Marechal, however, and he moved from slightly behind in chips to the brink of victory. But it was not to be. Campisano survived three more all-ins to retake the lead and control of the duel. The last hand found Campisano moving all in with 
, and Marechal calling it off with an unsuited . Marechal was the slight favorite, but the board again ran Campisano's way. The flop brought two more diamonds to give Campisano a flush draw, the turn was a king that gave him the lead, and the river was another diamond for the coup de grace, the bracelet-sealing flush.
Marechal ended up with second-place money of €145,550. Anastasakis's run was worth €105,850, and China's Yang earned €78,650 for fourth. For Campisano, who has become a regular in King's Resorts tournaments over the past year, the bracelet win also marked his first-ever WSOP cash and was also the largest cash of his live-tourney career. His prize includes entry to the upcoming €10,350 WSOPE Main Event, starting flights for which begin on Friday, October 4.
€1,350 Mini Main No-limit Hold'em final table results
- Christopher Campisano (Italy) - €213,950
- Frederic Marechal (Belgium) - €145,550
- Dimitrios Anastasakis (Greece) - €105,850
- Xiaohua Yang (China) - €78,650
- Andreas Krause (Germany) - €59,950
- Frederik Thiemer (Germany) - €46,850
- Luigi Pignataro (Italy) - €37,650
- Luc Ramos (Switzerland) - €31,050
Additional image courtesy of Tomas Stacha/World Poker Tour
