August 28 2011, Josh Bell

The 2011 PokerStars.net APPT Queenstown Main Event has finally come to its gripping conclusion, with Marcel Schreiner becoming the newest Asia Pacific Poker Tour champion.

This event marked the first time an APPT event was held in Queenstown. The field created the largest prize pool ever recorded in the city. While taking in any share of the NZD$342,900 prize pool would be an impressive feat, it was the NZD$94,300 first-place prize that all the returning players were vying for.

After almost 12 hours of tough play at the final table, including almost four of grueling heads-up play, it was Germany’s Marcel Schreiner and New Zealand local Matt Yates who went toe-to-toe for the title.

Schreiner managed to hold a chip lead at the end of Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, and at the final table he produced a dominating display to become the eventual champion.

The final table began with some of the finest players from the region taking to the felt. This included the likes of Jonathan Karamalikis, Hugh Cohen and Tom Grigg. By the time all those players had hit the rail in ninth place, eighth place and sixth place respectively, we were already several hours into the final table.

When heads-up play commenced, the two players had similar sized stacks but after a couple of hours, Schreiner showed his domination in the match, and managed to take down a huge majority of the pots to sit with a nice chip lead.

The two players went on to fight it out for over 180 hands and for the majority of them, Schreiner held the chip lead. The exception to this was when the biggest hand of the night occurred. Schreiner and Yates got all of their chips in the middle on a board showing . Yates held against Schreiner’s . The higher kicker for Yates made all the difference since the river bricked out and a big chip lead was finally in the hands of Yates.

The lead didn’t last long though, because Schreiner managed to chip away at Yates and slowly work his way back to a lead before managing to have Yates all-in holding against his own . When the flop hit the felt, Schreiner’s full house had Yates drawing dead and sent him home in second place.

Final Table Results

With Schreiner crowned the first ever APPT Queenstown champion, the sentiment around the event is that it may be set to become one of the most popular on the tour, with not only a great poker event on offer, but with the beautiful city of Queenstown something to marvel at while away from the felt.

Follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.

August 07 2011, Marc Convey

Ronnie Kaiser has become Switzerland’s first PokerStars.com European Poker Tour champion after he ran over the EPT Tallinn final table in four-and-a-half hours. He defeated Grzegorz Cichocki in a short heads-up battle to claim his maiden major title and a check for “275,000.

In the final hand Cichocki raised to 60,000 before Ronny Kaiser three-bet to 165,000. Cichocki had around one million chips behind and he verbally declared “all-in.” Kaiser jumped up a little in his seat before announcing a call.

Cichocki tabled to Kaiser’s and failed to catch up through the board.

Cichocki started heads-up very well and took the majority of the early pots but that changed very quickly. Kaiser is an extremely talented player and he started to run as well as he played and that combination is almost an unstoppable force. He showed a bluff with eight-high and got maximum value with pocket aces and two-pair. Before he knew it he had stretched into a 7 million to 1.5 million chip lead. The pressure seemed to take its toll on Cichocki and he made his stand with that final hand.

Cichocki went a long way to making the heads-up battle in the early stages of Sunday’s play. He raced out of the blocks and was quickly into the chip lead. It wasn’t long before Kaiser reclaimed his position as table captain and his assent back to the top started when he eliminated Arvi Vainionkulma in eighth place.

Vainionkulma was freerolling after winning the Skrill (Official Payment Provider Sponsor for EPT Season 8) Last Longer contest Friday that gave him his whole buy-in back in his Moneybookers account. His couldn’t find a pair on the board to overtake Kaiser’s pocket fours.

The eliminations came at a frenetic rate from here on in. Sami Kelopuro went out in a blaze of glory as he tried to river-bluff Kaiser with ace-high. Unfortunately for him, Kaiser had turned a straight and called the all-in to claim the dangerous scalp.

Stuart Fox was resigned to finishing sixth after he was crippled by Jani Sointula ( to ) but to his surprise and delight, Erlend Melsom got unlucky with ace-king versus the ace-queen of Sointula, before Fox had to move all-in. The PokerStars qualifier had most of his stack in the big blind the very next hand and he fell to Kaiser when his pair of eights was no match for Kaiser’s trip kings.

There was a plateau in play as chips were vacuumed up by the big stacks of Kaiser and Cichocki. Cichocki gained a lot of chips in a 1.7 million pot versus Sointula. He flopped a straight and got three streets of value out of the Finn, who call-mucked on the river. This left him short and he temporarily got back in the game after doubling through Kaiser, but moments later the two were all-in again. Kaiser’s stood up to the test of the Finn’s .

In the very next hand, Estonia’s final representative, Raigo Aasmaa, was following Sointula out of the door. He three-bet all-in from the big blind with but walked into the of Cichocki. It was over by the turn when Cichocki made a flush.

In less than four hours of play EPT Tallinn was down to heads-up and we know how that panned out. Here’s what Kaiser had to say on his victory:

“It’s very nice to win. I’ve been the chip leader for three days but I’ve got deep before and always finished 20th. This time I thought, ‘I should win this.’”

On having Cichocki on his left for the last two days:

“It was funny. We were next to each other for two days but the first big pot that we played was when were heads up. It wasn’t deliberate, we just busted all the other guys. It wasn’t a conscious decision to avoid him, I wasn’t scared.”

“I said that I’ll be the first EPT winner from Switzerland. I’ll be playing EPT Barcelona for sure.” Maybe first EPT double winner?

That’s it for this stop on the European Poker Tour, in a few short weeks, the team is headed to Barcelona for the second stop on Season 8. Until then, follow all the LAPT coverage on the PokerNews Live Reporting Blog.

Follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.