Nearly three years ago, Alessandro Pichierri was overjoyed to capture his first bracelet at King’s Resort during the 2021 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE). Today, he surpassed that achievement with a victory in Event #8: €25,000 NLH GGMillion€. Pichierri overcame a star-studded field of 38 entrants to claim his second WSOP gold bracelet and a career-best prize of €335,900.
Choosing to register as late as possible on Day 2, Pichierri stayed under the radar for most of the day, entering the final table in the middle of the pack. He began to gain momentum after the money bubble burst, ultimately overtaking Alex Foxen heads-up to secure the title and the lion's share of the €1,000,000 prize pool.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alessandro Pichierri | Italy | €335,900 |
| 2 | Alex Foxen | United States | €223,900 |
| 3 | Salih Atac | Switzerland | €141,500 |
| 4 | Leon Tsoukernik | Czechia | €98,200 |
| 5 | Tom-Aksel Bedell | Norway | €75,500 |
| 6 | Sirzat Hissou | Germany | €65,000 |
"I feel very grateful to see a good result from my hard work," Pichierri mentioned when asked how he felt following the big win. "When you play every day and things go bad, you can think that you're doing something wrong but when you win a tournament like this, you can feel a bit of peace. I've had many up moments and some down moments in my career, and this is for sure an up moment".
Pichierri had a difficult path to victory, with Foxen seated to his left and holding a dominant chip lead for most of the day. Pichierri touched on the difficulty of navigating that final table until heads-up play began.
"The whole final table was hard and painful at times. He [Foxen] is a very difficult opponent, very aggressive, and he was on my left as a massive chip leader. For the whole final table, I just waited and let him do everything. Once heads-up play began, I got lucky two times. I won a flip and then a semi-cooler. So heads-up was easy, but Foxen was a very hard opponent".
Late registration remained open through the first two levels of Day 2, allowing several high-profile players to join the 14 Day 1 survivors. Among the new entries were notable names such as Julien Martini, Fahredin Mustafov, former King’s Resort owner Leon Tsoukernik, Anson Tsang, Jan-Peter Jachtmann, and Alessandro Pichierri.
The day began with Alex and Kristen Foxen as the shortest stacks in the field, but their journeys took very different paths. Alex gained early momentum, winning several pots without a showdown and eventually knocking out Stephen Chidwick before eliminating his spouse, Kristen, to ascend among the chip leaders. Kristen and Chidwick chose to reenter, though neither could improve on their second attempts. Kristen managed to build momentum after busting Chidwick, but was sent to the rail again by her husband, this time in a blind-on-blind clash.
Meanwhile, Martin Kabrhel, who started as the chip leader, provided plenty of table banter. At one point, he needled Chidwick after the latter’s early bust-out. However, Kabrhel struggled to gain traction despite his early advantage and was eliminated well before the final table was formed.
Among those who narrowly missed out on the final table were Shaun Deeb, Simone Andrian, as well as the previously mentioned Jachtmann and Tsang. With Safwane Bahri’s elimination in tenth place, the nine-handed final table was locked in, led by Foxen, who held a dominant chip advantage over the field.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from Foxen was Orpen Kisacikoglu, who started the final table as the short stack with 16 big blinds. Kisacikoglu was unable to spin up his short stack and became the first to fall from the unofficial final table after losing a preflop race to Salih Atac, who entered the final table with the second-largest stack.
Online legend Viktor Blom began the day with an above-average stack, but his luck took a sharp turn for the worse once the final table began. After being forced to fold twice to Foxen’s aggression, Blom found himself on the wrong side of a nasty cooler when his queens ran into Pichierri’s aces, resulting in Blom’s elimination just two spots shy of making the money. Not long after, Samuel Ju would also run into aces, this time held by Atac. Ju failed to improve with his ace-king and earned the unfortunate title of bubble boy while Pichierri gained some much-needed momentum.
Former King’s Resort owner Tsoukernik had a roller-coaster final table following Ju’s elimination. First, he eliminated Sirzat Hissou in sixth place, and shortly afterwards, he turned a set of sixes in another hand that brought him nearly even with Foxen for the chip lead. From there, Tsoukernik lost most of his stack after doubling up Alessandro Pichierri twice but seemed poised for a comeback after sending off Tom-Aksel Bedell in fifth place. Foxen finally ended Tsoukernik’s run after picking up pocket kings and holding against the pocket queens of Tsoukernik, who exited in fourth place.
Foxen held well over half the total chips in play with three players remaining and applied relentless pressure on his opponents following Tsoukernik’s elimination. Pichierri managed to call a bluff from Foxen, keeping himself in contention, while Atac continued to dwindle before bowing out in third place.
Entering heads-up play, Foxen had nearly a 4:1 chip lead over Pichierri. However, Pichierri quickly won a flip in one of the first hands, which helped him stay competitive. From that point on, he seized the momentum. After winning a few more small pots, Pichierri found himself with the chip lead for the first time that day.
The final hand saw Foxen get his chips in with top pair against Pichierri’s overpair. Unfortunately for Foxen, he couldn’t hit either of his two outs and was forced to settle for second place, while Pichierri claimed the final pot of the night, along with the trophy and the top prize of €335,900.
