Seat 7: Luca Pagano, 33, Milan, Italy – Team PokerStars Pro -- 2,010,000
Pagano was one of the very first members of Team PokerStars Pro, joining shortly after the very first EPT Deauville event in season 1 of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour. Before taking up poker, Pagano studied computer programming and also dabbled in the stock market. After discovering PokerStars, Luca began playing at the free money tables. He swiftly progressed to real money games and hasn’t looked back since. He’s clocked up numerous cashes in PokerStars’ biggest tournaments and also won countless amounts of money at the high stakes cash tables.
But it’s live tournaments where Pagano has really made his name. He has a record 20 cashes in EPT Main Events and this is his seventh EPT final table appearance. His first was also here – at the very first EPT Deauville in Season 1.
Pagano and fellow Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier have been juggling first and second place in the EPT All-Time Tournament Leaderboard for years (although Pagano’s performance here in Deauville will certainly put him back on top.)
Pagano’s best live result was sixth place at the EPT4 Grand Final for €337,000; he also came sixth at EPT Dortmund (€153,000) and sixth again at EPT Prague (€100,000) as well as numerous other deep runs. But it was on home soil that the popular Italian finally snagged a major tournament title when he took down the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour event in San Remo last July for €210,000. Pagano has nearly $2 million in overall live tournament earnings and currently lies sixth on Italy's all-time money list. Pagano is being supported in Deauville by his fiancée Elena.
Bio courtesy of PokerStars.