We interviewed the winner of the Ultra Deep Carnival Series event on PokerStars Poker – Sisal Poker: here is our chat with Luca ‘iL-DottoreX’ Castellaneta, a twenty-seven-year-old from Salerno who divides his days between working as a radiology technician and online poker.
The hands of the Ultra-Deep Carnival Series
Hi Luca, let’s start from the beginning of the tournament, namely Day 1.
I started the tournament with about 70 big blinds of deepness. It’s not that I gave it much importance; it was simply thrown in there, among the other 15-16 tables of the session. I started decently, doubled my stack almost immediately, but then I started losing pots. An hour before the end of the day, I lost a big flip, and 20 minutes before the close of Day 1, I found myself with 5 blinds. I was talking with some friends, we were laughing and joking, everything very calm and serene; I seemed destined to lose it. Instead, in the end, I doubled up, first with AK against QJs, then in a coinflip with 9-9, and I closed the day at 20X.
And Day 2?
As I said, I arrived with 20X. But the hope of winning was close to zero. Basically, when you have important Day 2s starting with 150 or 100 left, the little thought ‘but if I were to win it would be nice’ is always there, but it remains at the dream level.
I didn’t have any kind of expectation, so much so that I opened all the tournaments there were to open, without saying ‘okay, now I’ll focus on this tournament’. Anyway, nothing, I win a flip right away, find myself at 30 blinds, and start to float. I continue to float, let’s say more or less at average, until I win a hand that puts me in orbit, AK against AQ.
Then I cooler with aces and so with 30 left I arrive as chipleader with about 70x. A bit of card dead, then a disaster happens. The opponent I had coolered opens from the button, I 3-bet QQ, he goes all-in, I call, he shows KK and I get short. I lose about 30x and find myself with 40x.
Immediately after, UTG opens, UTG1 flats, I 3-bet from the button with aces, the original raiser folds, and UTG+1 goes all-in. He shows a pair of nines, a nine comes on the flop. From there, let’s say I had started to lose hope of getting deep to the final table, that is, of being able to get a good result. Then a nice hand comes against ‘Todoenlacara’…
Tell us!
I have AK of hearts against his 77. I open, he flats from the button, the flop reads 7-K-x. I C-bet with my AKs, he calls. On the turn, another heart falls. I bet, call. On the river comes the heart that gives me the nuts. I shove, he snaps, and so then I was deep again. Until the final table, I continued to play; well, then in the middle there were some flips, one in particular was deadly and made me climb back up against my friend ‘andre666a’. He opens from the cutoff, I shove 88 from the small blind, he calls, and off we go. But until the final table, there were many other hands.
I thank my father for introducing me to the game even though he still limps aces from UTG and likes to pull the grandpa move.
Luca Castellaneta
The final table
Do you remember any of them?
No, but I remember that at the start of the final table I had an average stack because I had shortened a bit. Then during the final table bubble, I had suffered a lot of pressure since there was the chipleader, ‘Negelav’, who was skilled. An excellent player to whom I had to leave the lead, so I shortened without losing pots. But once I reached the final table, I felt really confident. The only one I feared was indeed ‘Negelav’, who was on my left.
At the three-way deal, however, ‘Negelav’ didn’t make it…
Look, right after he went out, I actually thought about playing, then I got a message from my friend ‘Andre666a’ and at that moment a light bulb went off and I started thinking about it. I thought about it a bit and in the end, I accepted. In essence, I thought that my opponents didn’t understand the ICM pressure that was in that situation. I saw straight 22x shoves from the button and so on. Since there was a €7,000 difference between second and third place…
After the deal, how important was the victory to you?
Very much. For me, there could have been only €100 at stake, I would have still played with blood in my eyes because I am a perfectionist and I always want to win. Then of course, you can come in second, but you must never give up an inch.
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The beauty of taking first
What were your feelings during the heads-up?
After three or four hands, I realized that my opponent was folding too much in heads-up, and so I told myself I could do it. I put on pressure, opened, C-betted always, sometimes I folded, sometimes not. At one point he overtook me, then I went back on top. Let’s say that in heads-up they were all rather standard hands, until indeed my final hand arrived, the outcome of which we know.
That last hand held more than one thrill…
Personally, I believe that ATo, 25bb in HU is a standard shove. Based on the history with the player, I know he wouldn’t shove 77/88/99 KJ/KQ/KT, but would play them the exact same way. Additionally, you have to consider the whole portion of bluffs that the opponent can 3-bet. In any case, for me, ATo remains un-foldable in this 25bb dynamic.
Now, what are your poker projects for the short/medium/long term?
In the short term, it’s to continue training with online MTTs. In the medium term, I want to go play live much more than I do today. In February, I was in Malta and unfortunately, I lost a coinflip with 16 left for a first prize of 160k, because of an ace on the river. I am convinced that if that ace hadn’t fallen, I would have certainly achieved a good result in one of my first live experiences. After comparing myself with the field, I know I can do it because it is very varied. In the long term, however, it is to reach the highest levels of the game and then move to the .com. I would like to collaborate with casinos and with the entities that organize tournaments. I would like to be a prominent figure from this point of view, because I like to play but I would also like poker to be an extra income without the need to play. Surely then I will start with a coaching group with guys I was already following previously. Entry and medium level. Coaching is not so much a matter of profit as it is of personal satisfaction, because you don’t live on money alone but also on satisfaction, and leaving something to others is one of my goals.
The graph of ‘iL-DottoreX’
Luca Castellaneta played his first tournament on PokerStars in July 2020: today he has 14,600 tournaments with an average buy-in of €20.4 for a total profit of €82,254. In the graph, you can see the surge brought by the victory the other night at the Ultra-Deep Carnival Series.
The secret
You were telling me that your poker growth over these years has a secret…
Yes, my wife, whom I married in August. She has always supported me since I started playing. I would say ‘tonight I can’t go out because I have to do a session’, because I am a perfectionist, or for example, we would go to the beach and I remember there was always the €15 starting at 5:00 PM, and I had to be home by six because I had to start the tournament.
And my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, would say ‘okay, let’s go back’. So she has always supported me. Now in the evening, I sit at the computer and my wife brings the plate in front of me. Let’s say it’s something that might even seem obvious to some,
