Sergio Castelluccio’s name may not be very popular on the global poker circuit but he is extremely well known in Italy and is considered to be amongst the top 10 poker players in Italy. The Hendon Mob ranked Castelluccio in 9th place based on Italy’s live tournament poker all time money list with accumulated earnings of $1,740,896.
Castelluccio’s best performances came at the 2013 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas at the $10,000 buy-in Main Event when he went through a field of over 6,300 players to secure 14th place and walk away with $451,398. He also had a great run at the 2012 European Poker Tour (EPT) in Monte Carlo and was part of the final four who were in line to win the main event.
He had what was possibly his best opportunity at winning a major event but blew it after making a couple of bad decisions. Castelluccio recently admitted that this defeat still rankled him and was his greatest regret in his poker career. Speaking about his defeat, Sergio Castelluccio said
When I got there, when I reached the final table, I felt that I could make it. I thought I could really bring home the title. Then, unfortunately, things went differently. I played one hand the wrong way, I was unlucky in another spot right after that, and the game was over. That’s how it went. Truth be told, I never imagined that I would be the first one to leave out of the four still battling for the title, and that made me feel really bad.
Castelluccio also expressed his disappointment at the decline of live poker in Italy and spoke about how nice it would be to have an EPT in Italy. Yet he agrees that based on the recently history of Sanremo, Italy has a lot of work to do before they can think about hosting an EPT. Sanremo hotels have a bad habit of hiking their hotel room rates and increasing the pricing of their food & beverages to fleece both players and tourists who are attending a poker event.
Castelluccio believes that unless and until this fleecing mentality is dropped, it will be very hard for an EPT event to be held successfully in Italy. He will travel to Malta to take part at an EPT event and believes that it will not be long before he wins a major event.