APPT wraps inaugural season in Sydney

Joe Hachem is the APPT Tournament of Champions winner!

After one of the most successful debuts on the tournament poker scene in 2007, the Asia Pacific tour (APPT) wrapped up its first year in Sydney, Australia on Sunday.

The APPT started its first season with a stop in Manila, Philippines in August. Many poker pundits were stunned when the first event, held at the Manila Hyatt Hotel and Casino, drew in 255 players.

This turnout rate would be repeated at events held in Seoul, South Korea, (186) and the Chinese territory of Macau (352). The tournaments would also spotlight rising stars of the game, putting their names into public view for the first time.

It all wrapped up in Sydney with the APPT Grand Final and a Tournament of Champions stop at the Star City Casino.

The Aussies put on a great show at the Grand Final, bringing a mind-numbing 561 players from 30 countries to the tables for the event, which had a $6,000 AUD buy-in.

PokerStars, the sponsor of the APPT, sent some of its finest to the felt to attempt to take the first Grand Final, including Team PokerStars Pros (and former World Champions) Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem, plus Team PokerStars Pros Scotty Nguyen, Lee Nelson and Isabelle Mercier and WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro. None of these great names of the poker world were around at the end of the tournament, however.

Outlasting the large field was a relative unknown in the poker world, whose name will no doubt be on the lips of many in 2008. Daniel Levy, a 28-year-old teacher from Sydney, was able to capture the top prize of $1 million after taking down the United States' Jeremiah Vinsant in an epic 67-hand heads-up match.

Levy recently finished third in another major tournament in Australia and has also shown his skills online by winning two large tournaments in recent months. Vinsant will be seen more often on the tournament circuit in 2008, making both men players to watch in the coming year.

The final table ended this way:

The APPT Tournament of Champions brought together the previous winners on the 2007 circuit against four former World Champions. The newly crowned Grand Final champion Levy joined the United Kingdom's Dinh Le (Macau), Israel's Ziv Bachar (Seoul) and America's Brett Parise (Manila) from the APPT against Scotty Nguyen, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joseph Hachem in a winner-take-all $50,000 charity battle.

Action in the event would eventually come down to arguably two of the finest poker ambassadors, Hachem and Raymer, with Hachem taking the TOC title. After winning the event, Hachem was proud of the win and of his plans for the charitable donation.

"The Shane Warne Foundation distributes funds raised to established charities that provide essential help and services to seriously ill and underprivileged children. It's a great cause and the foundation helps a lot of people. From a personal standpoint, it fills a gap that I've been looking for to give something back," he said.

The Grand Final in Sydney was a fitting finale to the APPT's historic first year and has catapulted the tour into the poker mainstream. With all the action complete, the APPT can now look forward to expanding its reach with still more tournaments in 2008.

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