Rocco Palumbo Wins WSOP Gold Bracelet and $462,464 Prize Money

Did you notice the title? Of course you see it is Rocco Palumbo taking down the victory, stacking up the cash, and flaunting the gold bracelet to everyone, but do you see the nice 'even' numbers in the amount he won? Of course you did!

Palumbo worked his way through a 2,948 player field where 2,949 would get paid but all of them were after the nice 'even' number...or were they? Maybe it was just the bracelet everyone wanted.

Event #44 was a $1,000 buy-in No Limit Holdem Event and brought out a lot of runners that included big name players like Terrence Chan, Liv Boeree, Ivan Demidov, Barry Shulman, Joe Cada, Amon Filippi, and more.

The road to the final table is always strewn with the carnage of broken dreams and busted hands, and it's inevitable that one final hand ends the adrenalin rush for one and pumps it into the other in hyperdrive infused with hydrogen.

That last hand came down right after dinner break. Nelson Robinson opened to 120,000 from the button and Rocco Palumbo asked how much Robinson had - then he three-bet to 300,000.

Robinson thought about it and pushed out a four-bet all-in. Palumbo called holding the to Robinson's .

When the board came , the best starting hand held up and Nelson Robinson took home $288,448 for second place.

Rocco Palumbo, a professional poker player from the Mediterranean seaport city of Genoa not only claimed his first bracelet, a WSOP full experience package, and a nice 'even' number for a first place prize of $464,464, but he also joined fellow countrymen Jeffrey Lisandro (Salerno), Max Pescatori (Milan), Dario Alioto (Palermo), Dario Minieri (Rome), and Valter Farina (Genoa) when he became the sixth Italian person to win a WSOP gold bracelet.

Congratulations Rocco!

PokerNews' Sarah Grant talks to Rocco after his win:

PokerNews Live Reporting has the full story.