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The 2017 WSOPE (World Series of Poker Europe) in Rozvadov ended, and the champion was the Spanish player, Marti Roca De Torres. He added up with all the chips in the € 10,350 Main Event, as the result of an epic battle against after an extensive heads-up battle of around four hours against the Italian Gianluca Speranza.
It was a hard face to face battle that lasted for hours, versus the Italian player that came close to winning a WSOP bracelet after finishing 2nd to Andrew Hinrichsen in the 2011 WSOPE in Cannes. Now he completed the podium for his career-best payday of € 689,246. “I am more nervous now than before when I was playing. But for sure I am very happy and it is a dream come true, I don’t know what to say”, expressed the Spaniard as the WSOP tournament director Jack Effel asked him how he was feeling. Roca De Torres said that because he is a true Cinderella story. The fourth Spanish player and now the first Catalan to win it, quit his job to become a poker player, his passion.
He used to be an economics teacher in a middle school, and he bet on Powerball [3] to get the € 220 entry fee for the WSOPE. Now he is quite a millionaire as this tournament earned him some € 1,115,207, and he has no plans of quitting poker now. He said that in the setbacks and the rough parts of the days, “my friends on the rail motivated me to keep playing; they gave me the power as not to lose hope in my victory”. He also thanked his young daughter and his wife and used his time on TV to tell the world that he is expecting another child.
Even when he took the lead early, victory wasn´t guaranteed, so the rest of the day was kind of a roller coaster ride to him. “At one point I thought that I was going to win for sure because I was in a perfect situation. For a moment I thought it’s done. Then, for a moment it looked impossible. But finally, I was growing my stack hand by hand. I tried to play hand by hand and don’t think in the future. Because I thought in the future and this is bad thinking”, said in tears the WSOPE winner and future father.