#803 – 2009 WSOP #61 – Seen & Heard #18 – Roberto Romanello: Making a Meal of Fish From Swansea and Vegas

Roberto Romanello is an engaging character. He is thirty-two but looks much younger, and is talkative, open, and friendly. Although he has been tearing up the European poker circuit, he is still – other than a famous YouTube clip at last year’s Main Event titled “The Greatest Laydown in Poker History” – he is still not well known in the United States. You can, however, expect that to change. With his engaging manner and spot-on reads, he is a natural for television and talented enough that his first big success in the United States can’t be that far off.

THE FAMILY BUSINESS
 
Roberto is part of an extraordinarily close-knit family. His parents emigrated from Italy to Wales and his father entered the restaurant business. After selling out of his first venture, a friend convinced him to open a local fish-and-chips bar. Despite having no experience in English cooking, he opened Roma Fish Bar, which is still packing them in on High Street in Swansea. His family started a second, more upscale restaurant, Roma 2000, and have purchased an additional pair restaurants, which they lease to other operators. Roberto and his three brothers all settled close to home and work in the family business.

The Romanellos have invested aggressively with their profits, growing their business and establishing a measure of financial security. Even now, Roberto explains that all his poker earnings go the family. The entire family succeeds or fails together. Even though Roberto has been a poker professional for the last three years, whenever he is back in Wales, he still works at the family restaurant along with his brothers and parents.

CAST PARTY

Roberto never played poker before 2006. His interests were family, the restaurants, partying with friends, and playing soccer. Although not physically imposing, he was a tough and tenacious player in a very competitive amateur league. That tenacity ended his athletic ventures, as I learned over coffee at the Rio’s Starbucks. Roberto referred to it simply as “the injury”, and then rolled up his right pant-leg to reveal a five-inch scar just below the knee and a second five-inch scar on his lower shin. Then, pointing to several pock marks on his leg, he said, “There was a nail here. There was another nail here.  Here’s another nail…”

After multiple surgeries, he was laid up at home with a steel rod running from knee-to-ankle, a broken tibia and fibula, and a cast that went from his hip to his ankle. Watching the World Series on television, he thought “that looks like it could be fun.”  Even though he had never played poker before – or even owned a computer – he asked one of his brothers to purchase him a laptop computer so he could try playing poker online.

So Roberto started playing $50 SnGs on an account his brother started. After playing for a few days with some success, he won an SnG and was informed that he had won his way into a multi-table satellite for entry and expenses toward a World Poker Tour event in the U.S. He didn’t know he was playing a satellite or that MTT satellites even existed. Nevertheless, he played the MTT satellite and won it, earning the $15,000 package.
 
But there was a problem. Because the account was established by his brother in his brother’s name, only his brother (also a poker player) could use the WPT buy-in. The brothers chose the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown in May 2006, then two months off. As for how they would finesse who would play in the event, they would work that out later.

In the meantime, Roberto became obsessed with poker and tore up the cash games and tournaments at his local poker room, winning £38,000. By the time the brothers made their journey to Las Vegas, between the satellite package and Roberto’s growing bankroll, they could both play the WPT event. Roberto recalls finishing on the bubble in that tournament, despite having to travel internationally and play with that hip-to-ankle plaster cast.

Romanello had such a good time at the Mirage that he made a return trip for the Main Event of the World Series. Still lugging his balky, cast-covered leg, he finished in the money. All these early results encouraged Roberto to start playing in big poker rooms and casinos in Europe during major poker tournaments.

Among the London pros, however, the tricks that worked with the locals didn’t go over as well. On one particular hand, Roberto made a straight on the river and deliberately considered whether to bet. His opponent said, “No need for the Hollywood. I know you got it.”

So he stepped up his game. Using his naturally open and friendly personality, he talks a lot at the table, either to goad opponents into making bad plays or using the reads and information he picks up from getting them to talk. This has made Roberto Romanello a fan favorite on European television. It has also led to some remarkable play.

His most famous read was during the 2008 Main Event, probably one of the most remarkable hands ever televised. Roberto was at the TV table – it was Mike Matusow’s starting table – and was dealt J-J. Because a player he regarded as exceptionally tight raised pre-flop, his mental radar was on alert for A-A or K-K. Matusow was also in the hand and all three players were still in it when Roberto bet 1,800 on the river, after a board of A-J-K-T-T. Geller, the original raiser, made it 6,000. Matusow, with pocket nines, made an easy fold and Roberto went into the tank – WITH A FULL HOUSE. He said Geller, “Will you show?” Geller said no, then changed his mind and said he would show.

Roberto mucked and his opponent showed pocket kings. Romanello then retrieved and turned over his lower full house. Matusow, who places tremendous faith in his own reads, was beside himself. “Wow! How do you fucking fold that hand? WOW! WOW! Oh my God! I could never have folded that hand.”

In typical Mike Matusow fashion, this became a testament to Mike’s own bad luck, “How do I draw tables like this? Seventy-two million idiots and I draw a table where guys fold jacks full and are right.”

Roberto recently won his first big European tournament, the PartyPoker European Open, has three cashes in the 2009 World Series, and knocked Tom Dwan out of the WSOP Heads-Up Championship. Just because he’s not quitting his job at Roma Fish Bar, that doesn’t mean we can’t expect to hear a lot more from Romanello in the near future.

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