Almost five hundred poker players gathered at the Star City Casino in Sydney, Australia to compete in the 2008 PokerStars Asian Pacific Poker Tour Grand Final. The buy-in for the event was AUD $6,000 which created a prize pool of AUD $2,862,000 that the top forty eight finishers would be sharing.

The winner of the Grand Final was not a poker pro but a local insurance executive named Martin Rowe. Rowe beat Australian poker pro Jason Gray in heads up play and took home $1 million AUD for his achievement.

Rowe began the final day of play third in chips and began to day building to his chip stack. Rowe knocked out every player except one and had an almost 6-1 chip lead against Gray. Gray doubled his chips quickly and almost evened the chips.

The final hand went as follows: Rowe held A-Q when Gray shoved all in with 9-5. Rowe called and by the time four cards were on the board both had paired. Rowe held the higher pair and won the match and the title as Season II APPT Grand Final Champion.

Final Results:

1 - Martin Rowe (Australia) - AUD $1,000,000
2 - Jason Gray (Australia) - AUD $476,000
3 - Tony Basile (Canada) - AUD $266,000
4 - Antonio Fazzolari (Australia) - AUD $182,000
5 - Timothy English (Australia) - AUD $140,000
6 - Frank Saffioti (Australia) - AUD $100,800
7 - Daniel Kowalski (Poland) - AUD $72,800
8 - Hai Bo Chu (Australia) - AUD $53,200
9 - Tom Rafferty (Australia) - AUD $39,200


- 2008-12-09