Federico Butteroni has a lot of obstacles to overcome these days. As an elite member of the 2015 World Series of Poker November Nine, he’ll go into the final table with the lowest stack of just 6,200,000. He’s not the most experienced, nor is he very well known in his field. But if confidence and charisma stand for anything, you can’t count the young Italian out yet.
At 25 years of age, Federico possesses a winning smile and an attitude to match. Over the last 7 days of Main Event action, his chip stack has suffered more variance than Viktor Blom’s online cash games, having swayed from top 10 to low man on the totem pole more than once. But as the proverbial pendulum vacillates, Butteroni could be due for an upswing any moment.
His appearance on the poker world’s greatest stage marks only the second time an Italian poker player has graced the list of November Niners. Filippo Candio was the first, finishing 4th in the 2010 WSOP Championship, and subsequently skyrocketing to the 3rd position on Italy’s All-Time Money List. Butteroni, who’s currently ranked 450th on that list, is guaranteed to jump into at least the 18th position, even falls to the rails on the first hand come November.
Federico’s Live Poker Experience
Federico is no newcomer to the felt. He may not have a large number of cashes under his belt, but there’s something to be said for the old cliché, “quality over quantity”. After just 9 in-the-money finishes, the young Italian already has $103,006 to show for it.
Butteroni spent much of 2014 in Australia competing in weekly tournaments at Crown Casino Perth, where he wrangled up four cashes. This year, he’s been grinding the felt at the Rio, landing two WSOP cashes prior to his Main Event run.
The largest cash of Federico’s career came just two months ago at the 2015 WSOP Monster Stack. He outlasted the vast majority of the 7,192 field to capture the 20th place prize of $45,633. Butteroni followed that up with a fantastic 1st place routing of the Rio Daily Deepstack on June 24, worth $31,756.
With over 80-grand in his pocket, entering the 2015 WSOP $10,000 Main Event was a no-brainer. By the end of Day 2 he had worked his way up in the counts to 187th out of 1,796, only to find himself barely surviving to Day 4 after falling to the bottom 25% of the counts. But if the 25 year old Italian is anything, he’s a survivor.
Torturous Tanking by Butteroni
Unfortunately, for the majority of his competitors, his tactics aren’t always the most appreciated of sorts. By Day 6, he became known for irritating, if not irrational, tanking. He spent about 5 minutes deciding on how to play a board of Jc 7c 2c 7d, which is understandable enough, but from that point on, elongated visits to the tank became normal for him.
Alexander Turyansky, who went on to become the ill-fated bubble of the November Nine (10th, $756,897), was the most fractious of Butteroni’s opponents. Numerous tyrannical outbursts took place between the two as Turyansky called the clock on him repeatedly. Much to the German’s delight, they were finally split up due to table resizing.
Now, as poker’s most coveted group awaits the commencement of the final table in November, Federico Butteroni has the longest odds of winning the championship. His 6.2mm stack is 10x smaller than that of the current chip leader, Joe McKeehen (63,100,000).