Sander Totuli Wins First Open WCOAP Event; Wales Win Team Championship

Brazil’s Sander Totuli won the first open event of the $750,000 guaranteed APAT World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP), the $55 buy-in 6-Max Knockout Championship.

A bumper crowd of 1,456 players bought into this freezeout event and Totuli outlasted them all. Half the $75,000 prize pool went onto the heads of each entrant with the remaining 50% shared between the top 221 finishers.

Estonia’s Guillermo Gordo was the unfortunate soul who burst the money bubble after crashing out in 222nd place. Gordo collected $31.25 worth of bounties along the way so didn’t leave empty-handed.

Nobody at the seven-handed final table walked away with less than $1,000 for their $55 investment. All seven seats were filled by players from different countries, showing amateur poker is massive around the world.

Ilija Savevski of Austria busted in seventh and won $1,032 with bounties included. Anatolii Rzyzhov finished in sixth for $1,547 before Jan Verner padded his bankroll with $2,324 when his tournament ended in a fifth-place exit.

Fourth-place and $2,641 went to Mikita Urbanovich with the exit of Jacques Blit in third sending the tournament heads-up; Blit banked $3,635 for his efforts.

Totuli and Canada’s Samuel Scott locked horns heads-up and Totuli got the job done. His reward for victory was a $10,110 score made up of $4,866 in prize money and $5,244 worth of bounties. Scott walked away with a combined score worth $5,212.

WCOAP #02 – 6-Max Knockout Championship Final Table Results

APAT CEO Leigh Wiltshire Gives The Low-down on the WCOAP Festival

Matveichuk Is The Mix-Max Championship

Russia’s Roman Matveichuk is the Mix-Max Championship champion after he topped a 508-strong field on January 26. Matveichuk got his hands on a $4,489 prize for his $55 investment, a healthy return indeed.

All but one of the finalists saw their $55 investment swell to four-figures. Sixth-place finisher Peter Horvath collected $786. Onni Huttunen of Finland walked away with $1,005 to show for this efforts before Joao Oliveira secured the $1,452 fourth-place prize.

Dylan Ellis of Canada fell in third for $2,177 which left Matveichuk and John May heads-up. May fell at the final hurdle and had to make do with a $3,123 consolation prize, leaving the champion to net the $4,489 top prize.

WCOAP #03 – Mix-Max Championship Final Table Results

Football Star Max Kruse Score Dramatic Last-Minute Winner For Germany

There was plenty of drama in the opening WCOAP event, which was an invite-only Team Championship. Ten teams from around the world, each with four players representing them, fought it out across 24 10-handed sit & go tournaments.

Team Wales won the gold medal in this event after captain Richard Rudling-Smith, Dylan Herbert, Dan Owston, and Greg Mawson racked up 190 points.

Both Team Germany (Clement Hayer, Leon Leisner, Pascal Iwersen, Max Kruse) and Team Austria (Louis Toubib, Peter Bumba, Viktor Ruip, Manuel Blaschke) were fighting for second place and the silver medal right up to the last round of matches.

APAT and partypoker Partnership Creates Superb Events

Austria’s Bumba finished third in one of the final two No-Limit Hold’em rounds, one place ahead of Germany’s Leisner before Blaschke took down one of the other Hold’em tournaments.

Germany didn’t throw in the towel and Hayer, the Germany captain, managed a second-place finish in a PLO8 tournament to take the race for second place down to the wire.

The final tournament was PLO and both Germany and Austria had a player in the final three. Ruip, representing Austria, crashed out in third leaving Germany’s Max Kruse and Netherlands’ Stefan Fischer heads-up.

Kruse is that Max Kruse, the professional footballer with more than 450 club appearances and 14 for the German national team. He’s used to handling pressure and that showed as he defeated his Dutch opponent to lock up the maximum 15 points from this game and to secure the silver medal for Germany by a single point.

It’s great to see someone of Kruse’s stature competing at the WCOAP. He loves playing poker and has some superb results in No Limit 2-7 Lowball events at the WSOP. He finished third in a $1,500 buy-in event at the 2014 WSOP and finished fourth in the same event in 2017.

Kruse’s poker hit the headlines in 2016 when it became public knowledge that he’d left €75,000 in poker winnings in the back of a taxi. His club at the time, Wolfsburg, fined Kruse €25,000 for playing poker without their permission. Kruse had scored a hat trick a day earlier in a match against Hoffenheim.

WCOAP #01 – Team Championship Final Standings

Win Up To Five Prizes Per Day in the New Year Rush

Join partypoker and Receive £40 Worth of Tournament Tickets

Stay tuned to UK & Ireland PokerNews throughout the APAT WCOAP as we will bring you frequent updates about the winners and the race for that $5,000 MILLIONS Main Event ticket.

Those of you with a partypoker account should head to APAT and create your free APAT account. If you don’t have a partypoker account, download partypoker via UK & Ireland PokerNews, deposit at least £10 and you’ll receive £40 worth of SPINS and tournaments tickets.

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