Carrying the flag of Italy as his country’s Last Man Standing, Federico Butteroni was going to have some work left to do if he wanted to become a member of the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event’s November Nine. With 36 players to go, Butteroni was second-to-last in chips with 1.795 million markers, but he would even say that this had been the best poker dream he’s ever had.

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The predominance of Butteroni’s tournament exploits haven’t come in his native Italy, but rather “Down Under.” Calling the Crown Casino in Perth, Australia his home, Butteroni had four of his previous six cashes prior to 2015 at that casino’s weekly tournaments. He had been quiet on the 2015 tournament poker scene up until May 2015, when he came up short of the final table at the Italian Masters of Poker event in Rozvadov, the Czech Republic.

It seems the 2015 WSOP was where Butteroni’s visions of poker grandeur were born. As a part of the WSOP Monster Stack tournament, Butteroni finished in 20th place to earn his largest tournament score ever, $45,633.

He followed that up with a win in one of the Rio Daily Deepstack tournaments for another $31,756 payday and cashed in Event $59, a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament, to drive his career earnings up to $103,006. Wherever he finished in the 2015 WSOP Main Event, Butteroni was ensured his best poker payday ever.

Butteroni was making the most of his stay at the Rio, potentially to the point of causing some conflicts with his tablemates. He stayed in the tank for about five minutes on a very wet Jc-7c-2c-7d flop and turn against Randall Clinger before dinner on Day 6 before folding, then took similar amounts of time to make even the smallest decisions on the felt afterwards.

That behavior drew the ire of opponent Alexander Turyansky, with the duo’s verbal tirades against each other over Turyansky calling the clock on Butteroni only ended when Butteroni was moved from that table to rebalance the field.

He entered the 2015 WSOP November Nine as the short stack.