Mike Dentale Wins Venetian $500k GTD for $185,000

New York pro Mike Dentale often hits the headlines for the wrong reasons, but the 47-year old proved his poker-playing credentials yet again by taking down the 2017 Card Player Poker Tour Venetian December Extravaganza $3,500 no-limit hold’em Main Event – a victory worth $185,061.

Dentale has been in the poker news several times over the last year or two – a very public Twitter spat with Cate Hall leading to a much-heralded ‘HeadsUpforRollz’ match, which the muscle-bound Brooklyn man lost, but his career tournament earnings of $1.7million show that he has the game to back up his mouth more often than not.

At the Venetian this week it seemed like everyone was eyeing up a Christmas payday, 235 entries smashing the $500k guarantee and putting a total of $740,250 on the line – 4 days of play whittling the field down to a final table of nine, with chip leader Mark Radoja’s pocket aces seeing off Paul Volpe for the first knockout as the money started getting very serious indeed.

There then followed a quick series of eliminations, including England’s Jack Salter in 7th, and a while later Almedin Imsirovic fell in 4th having recovered from a chip and a chair situation earlier in the day – 1 big blind somehow enough to keep him alive to ladder up to a very healthy $61,441 payout.

Joseph Cheong, who readers may recall as the $4million+ 3rd place finisher at the 2010 WSOP Main Event, tumbled out in 3rd, it left Dentale and Radoja to fight it out for top honours – and it took almost 5 hours to separate the pair.

It all ended with a classic cooler, Radoja re-raising his big blind all-in only to see his adversary turn over A♦ A♣, leaving his own A♠ K♣ drawing very thin. A king on the flop gave him some small hope but the other kings remained firmly in the pack and Dentale’s victory was secured.

The Brooklyn pro said afterwards:

“It means a lot, especially a tournament like this because it’s a bigger buy-in and there are a hell of a lot of really good players. But I actually play better with good players, I don’t do well against recreational players, so I like the better fields.”

Naturally Dentale couldn’t resist a dig at a former foe along the way, tweeting…

Final table results