Congratulations to Tom Marchese, Champion of 2010 NAPT Venetian Main Event! ($827,648)

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Tom Marchese, Champion of 2010 NAPT Venetian

We have to admit that when the heads-up match started, it seemed that Tom "Kingsofcards" Marchese was a marked man living on borrowed time. He was slumping in his chair and Sam Stein was winning just about every pot. And why shouldn't Stein have won every pot? To many watching the tournament it felt like Stein had won every significant pot for the last three days.

But one thing we noticed about Stein was that he just doesn't like to fold. Marchese used that tendency to his advantage to get maximum value for strong but vulnerable hands during the heads-up portion of the final table. It was Marchese's willingness to put all of his chips in the pot that proved Stein's undoing. Stein tried to make two massive hero calls against Marchese but each time Marchese showed up with the goods.

It was that ability to divine his opponents' tendencies and weaknesses -- and exploit them -- that propelled Marchese to victory. A long, difficult road from "Shuffle up and deal!" on Saturday afternoon to lifting the trophy here tonight made it all worthwhile.

When asked how he intended to celebrate tonight, Marchese gave the true poker degenerate's answer: "I may just head to L.A. to play the L.A. Poker Classic Main Event on Friday."

However you choose to celebrate, Tom, congratulations on your hard-earned victory.

That wraps up our coverage of the 2010 PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Venetian Main Event, but we're not finished here in Las Vegas just yet. Tomorrow we'll have live updates of the final table of the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout. Join us at 2pm local time to see which of Scott Seiver, Hoyt Corkins, Faraz Jaka, Joe Cassidy, Brett Richey, Peter Eastgate and Ashton Griffin will take down that tournament.

Until then, you can find us at the bar.