After a marathon 18 and a half hour battle between eight national teams, China eventually emerged victorious at the inaugural World Team Poker event and carried off the $300,000 first place prize.
Taking place at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas, the eight teams of six players representing their national countries were the USA, England, Vietnam, Greece, Brazil, Australia, Israel and China.
The format of the tournament saw eight players sat in on each of the Round One tables, with only the top two finishers progressing through to the final table. However, with only one final table seat allocated to each team, any country qualifying more than one player would have their chip totals accumulated with a designated team member taking the solitary seat.
The three games rotated were fixed limit Hold’em, no-limit Hold’em and pot-limit Omaha, and with substitutions and advice from the captains a feature of the competition, the spectators and online viewers certainly got to enjoy plenty of action from the exciting team event.
Amazingly, Teams USA, England and Israel all fell at the first hurdle and weren’t even able to field a single player for the final table showdown.
Of the five remaining teams in the final, Vietnam was the first to exit after being knocked out by Brazil during a pot-limit Omaha round.
Australia were the next to hit the rails when Tony G, holding Ah-Ac-6c-2c made a set of 6′s on a flop of 6h-9h-6d only to be drawing exceptionally thin against Greece holding Qd-Jh-9c-9s and a flopped full house.
Greece’s jubilation was short lived though, when their pre-flop pocket 9′s push was called by Brazil holding pocket 10′s, and so the final heads-up battle between Brazil and China was set.
Despite having an almost 3 to 1 chip advantage over their opponent, Team Brazil soon found themselves losing ground to Johnny Chan and eventually the final hand saw both teams all-in with Brazil holding 5c-6h-7s-Td to China’s Ks-9s-7h-4h. A board of 9h-4s-6d-Js-4h gave China the full house and meant Team Brazil would have to be content with a runner-up position and $100,000 prize-money to ease their disappointment.
In the meantime, Team China got to enjoy a famous victory at the inaugural event, collect the $300,000 top prize, as well as secure bragging rights for the next year. Deserved congratulations go to Team China, and Chan, Chiu, Ho, Rich Zhu, Chau Giang, Winifred Yu and Derek Cheung.
