A Final Look at WSOP Asia-Pacific

The World Series of Poker made its first foray outside of America and Europe these past two weeks, presenting the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific.  Five bracelet events were presented as were a few extra events, including a 50K buy-in High Roller event and the return of the Caesars Cup.

The Series kicked off with the Accumulator event.  The Accumulator allowed players to enter all three Day 1’s and combine chip stacks to start Day 2 play.  American pro Bryan Piccioli (GPI#779) (pictured, left) won the event, picking up his first bracelet.

Piccioli defeated Aussie favourite Jonathan Karamalikis (GPI#166) heads-up to break Australians’ hearts.

Another American, Jim Collopy (GPI#556) took down Event #2, Pot-Limit Omaha.  Collopy got the best of Ming Nguyen heads-up, preventing Australia from once again collecting a bracelet.

Then things really started to get interesting as Phil Ivey (GPI#95) collected bracelet #9 in the 2K Mixed Event, defeating Brandon Wong (GPI#2410) heads-up.  Daniel Negreanu (picture, right) finished fourth in the event, falling short on his quest for bracelet #5, but, this wasn’t the last we’d hear of Kid Poker.

Australia would finally earn its first WSOP APAC bracelet when Aaron Lim (GPI#239) picked up the W in the 5K NLH Six-Handed event, overcoming Malaysian Hun Wei Lee (GPI#5247) heads-up.

And finally, the last bracelet was on the line as the WSOP APAC Main Event would draw over 400 players and over 3.8M dollars were on the line.  Five years removed from his last WSOP bracelet win, Daniel Negreanu (GPI#97) was back in the winner’s circle, earning the fifth bracelet victory of his illustrious career.

2012 WSOP October Niner Russell Thomas (GPI#904) and Big One for One Drop Champion Antonio Esfandiari (GPI#54) earned Top 10 finishes in the event.

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*Non-bracelet events

FANTASY FOCUS
A total of 2,674 FPM Managers earned the minimum 31 FPM Points in the Main Event with many having eventual Champion Daniel Negreanu on their squads.  Toping the charts was Vinz of France who scored a whopping 597 FPM Points!  His team included three Top 10 finishers including Negreanu, Benny Spindler and Esfandiari.

Jake Cody was once again the top pro with his 439-point performance.  Like Vinz, Cody’s team included the Top 10 trio of Kid Poker, Spindler and the Magician!

THE PERFECT TEAM
The perfect team would have scored you a total of 931 FPM Points and would have only included a total of 8 players.  The total cost for that team would have been 876,975:

1st Daniel Negreanu 207,325
6th Benjamin Spindler 11,310
8th Russell Thomas 10,000
9th Antonio Esfandiari 309,960
12th Joel Feldman 10,000
24th Todd Terry 284,850
31st Minh Nguyen 10,000
35th Jeff Lisandro 33,350
*Perfect team based on 10-player team and 1,000,000 cap

ERIC’S TEAM
Only two of my eleven-player unit scored points for me in the Main Event.  Like many of you out there, I did pick Main Event Champ Negreanu and High Roller winner Philipp Gruissem so, it’s not all bad:

TEAM DANIS (318 FPM Points)
Daniel Negreanu: 185 FPM Points
Benjamin Spindler: 133 FPM Points
Michael Watson: Eliminated
<<< Benjamin Wilinofsky: Eliminated
Mike Leah: Eliminated >>>
Barry Greenstein: Eliminated
Greg Merson: Eliminated
Brandon Cantu: Eliminated
Jim Collopy: Eliminated
Phil Ivey: Eliminated
Oliver Speidel: Eliminated

 Head on over to Facebook and signup to play the GPI Fantasy Poker Manager – you still have plenty of time to make your selections for EPT Berlin … FPM is the OFFICIAL Fantasy Poker Game of the World Poker Tour!

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