The inaugural World Team Poker event has finished up and it was the team from China that walked away the victors. The event took place at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and eight teams of six players competed for their country in the event.
The eight teams were representing the following countries in the event: USA, England, Vietnam, Greece, Brazil, Australia, Israel and China. The players on each team were representing their national country. The tournament format saw eight players competing on each of the Round One tables. Only the top two finishers would move on to the final table.
Only one final table seat was available for each team so a country with more than one qualifying player would have their chip counts totaled and that player would take the one seat that was available. The tournament saw a rotation of three poker games: fixed limit hold’em, no limit hold’em and pot limit Omaha.
The event was certainly exciting for fans and spectators to watch as the captains of each team could give advice to players and there were substitutions during the tournament as well. During the competition three teams went down early, not even making the final table. USA, England and Israel all fell out of the competition early.
So in final table play there were only five teams remaining. The first to be knocked out of the competition was the Vietnam team when they went up against Brazil during the pot limit Omaha round. The next team to go would be Australia courtesy of Tony G when he went all in with A-A-6-2 and made a set of 6s on a flop of 6-9-6. However he would be outdrawn by the Greece team who held Q-J-9-9 to draw a full house.
Greece would be the next team to go when they would go all in with pocket 9s only to be called by Brazil who held pocket tens. So in the end it was a heads up match between Brazil and China. Team Brazil had an almost 3 to 1 chip lead over their opponent but Johnny Chan would eventually even the chip counts and take the lead.
On the final hand both teams were all in and Brazil held 5-6-7-10 while Chan held K-9-7-4. The board was 9-4-6-J-4 and this gave Chan a full house and the win. Team Brazil would have to settle with runner up and $100,000 in prize money.
However Team China could claim the victory and the $300,000 first place prize. The team now can brag on their win until next year when the event takes place yet again. It will definitely be interesting to see if the team will be able to hold on to their title or if another country will step in and take the reins. Team China members include: Johnny Chan, Ho, Chiu, Rich Zhu, Chau Giang, Winifred Yu and Derek Cheung.