Wales Wins APAT Team Championship; Max Kruse Scores a Crucial Late Winner

The $750,000 guaranteed APAT World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) began on January 23 with the WCOAP #01 – Team Championship getting things underway. Wales walked away with the title but there was some major drama involving football star Max Kruse late on.

The team Championship saw 10 teams of four APAT members lock horns across 24 No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 10-handed sit & go tournaments. Points were awarded based on each players’ finishing position and it was Wales who came out on top with 190 points in total.

Flying Start For Wales

Wales’ team, captained by Richard Rudling-Smith, was made up of Dylan Herbert, Dan Owston, and Greg Mawson.

Mawson finished second in the first No-Limit Hold’em round with Owston claimed a fourth-place finish. The Welsh dragons never looked back after that impressive start.

Team Germany (Clement Hayer, Leon Leisner, Pascal Iwersen, and Max Kruse) and Team Austria (Louis Toubib, Peter Bumba, Viktor Ruip, and Manuel Blaschke) were neck-and-neck in the race for the silver medal; it was any team’s to win going into the sixth and final round.

Austria’s Peter Bumba finished third in one of the two final NLHE games, finishing one place above Germany’s Leon Leisner. Manuel Blaschke took down the other NLHE game to give Austria the advantage going into the home straight.

Germans Refuse To Throw The Towel In

Germany wasn’t prepared to give up, however, and Clement Hayer put in a captain’s performance to finish second in the PLO8 tournament and take the race for the silver medal down the last game, a PLO tournament.

By the time this final tournament was three-handed, Victor Ruip (Austria), Stefan Fischer (Netherlands) and Max Kruse (Germany) were still in contention.

Ruip crashed out in third place, meaning if Kruse won the heads-up battle, Germany would secure the silver medal by a mere point! Kruse is used to high-pressure situations, as would you be if you’d played professional football for the likes of Werder Bremen, Borussia Monchengladbach, Fenerbache and the German national team.

The 32-year-old star striker has banged in 123 goals in 458 appearances for his various clubs and four goals in 14 appearances for Germany. He’s used to scoring last-minute winners on the field and he managed to do the same at the poker table defeating Fischer to lock up 15 points, which were enough to send Germany into second place in the final table and resign a dogged Austrian team to third place.
Congratulations to Team Wales who claim the first gold medal of the championships.

First Championship Event Reaches Day 2

The race for the first WCOAP bracelet is well and truly on in the WCOAP #2 – 6-max Knockout Championship. A field of 1,456 players exchanged $55 for a chance to become a WCOAP champion and only 75 of those remain going into the second and final day.

Ciaran Duffy is the man to catch when the tournament resumes at 19:15 GMT on January 25. Duffy has a tournament-leading stack of 3,466,956 chips and has already racked up $342.20 worth of bounties.

Belgium’s Zyed Belhaouane is the only other player with more than three-million chips in their stack. The Belgian returns to the fray armed with 3,466,956 chips.

WCOAP #2 – 6-Max Knockout Championship Top 10 Chip Counts

Place | Player | Country | Chips
1 | Ciaran Duffy | United Kingdom | 3,466,956
2 | Zyed Belhaouane | Belgium | 3,451,528
3 | Steve Redfearn | United Kingdom | 2,438,404
4 | Deocleciano Ribeiro Do Monte | Brazil | 2,281,253
5 | Roberto Firmino Santos Filho | Brazil | 2,280,005
6 | Jacques Blit | Argentina | 2,171,004
7 | Sander Totuli | Brazil | 2,028,000
8 | Ali Naqvi | Canada | 1,950,842
9 | Kevin O’Hanlon | United Kingdom | 1,905,017
10 | Karen Tovar | Mexico | 1,798,742

New APAT WCOAP Events on January 25

Day 2 of the 6-Max Knockout Championship and the WCOAP Mini – 6-Max Knockout kick off at 19:15 GMT and we can’t wait to discover who takes them down.

Also commencing at 19:15 GMT are the $55 buy-in WCOAP #3 – Mix-Max Championship with its $25,000 guarantee and the $5.50 WCOAP Mini – Mix-Max with $5,000 guaranteed.

Don’t forget to register for a free APAT account so you’re eligible to win the gold, silver, and bronze medals, the Championship bracelets, and the added prizes in the Player of the Year race.