Martin Rowe Books A Local APPT Sydney $1Million Win
December 9, 2008 by ozpoker
Filed under APPT, Star City Poker
Local Sydney poker player Martin Rowe pocketed a massive AUD $1 million to become the newest PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Grand Final champion, outplaying 476 rivals over the past five days.
Rowe started out playing in pub tournaments just three years ago, but the 34-year-old financial analyst is now 2008 APPT Sydney Champion.
The tournament began on Tuesday with 477 players and by Sunday the final table of nine players had been decided with seven aussies in the running.
Rowe had been playing tournament poker for only three years when he entered a tournament at his local pub before quickly graduating to “real” poker tournaments at Star City and Melbourne’s Crown Casino.
The APPT win is his first major tournament, and featured an impressive starting field, including current WSOP Champion Peter Eastgate, homegrown WSOP Champion Joe Hachem, and former WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker, as well as big tournament regular such as Vanessa Rousso and Gavin Griffen.
Martin Rowe Is Congratulated By His Wife Immediately After His APPT Sydney Win
“Three years ago a pub near me started up a normal league, and I started playing in that because I was interested in the game, and how the odds came together,” he said.
“I started out hoping not to make a fool of myself, and rapidly improved.”
“I haven’t made any decisions about where I go from here. I won’t be making any decisions until after tomorrow.”
The final table play lasted a nine and a half hours and the last hand of the tournament went down this way :
Rowe raised 250,000 pre-flop.
Gray went all-in and Martin called revealing A♣Q♥ to Gray’s 9♥5♥.
The flop came down A♠Q♣5♠ giving Rowe top two pair and Gray bottom pair. The turn completed Gray’s bottom two pair with a 9♠ and Gray needed the two remaining 5’s or 9’s to survive. The river brought the 3♠ and with no player holding a spade, Rowe took the pot and final with his two pair.
This tournament ends the second season of the PokerStars.net APPT. The Season 3 schedule for the APPT is due to be announced shortly.
The standings for the final nine of the APPT Sydney Main Event are as follows :
- 1 Martin Rowe Australia $1,000,000
- 2 Jason Gray Australia $476,000
- 3 Tony Basile Canada $266,000
- 4 Antonio Fazzolari Australia $182,000
- 5 Timothy English Australia PokerStars Qualifier $140,000
- 6 Frank Saffioti Australia $100,800
- 7 Daniel Kowalski Poland PokerStars Qualifier $72,800
- 8 Hai Bo Chu Australia PokerStars Qualifier $53,200
- 9 Tom Rafferty Australia $39,200
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