Jeff Rossiter Wins PokerStars.net HKD$25,000 ACOP Warm-Up!
The 2012 PokerStars.net APPT Macau: Asia Championship of Poker HKD$25,000 Warm-Up event concluded on Tuesday night at PokerStars Macau at the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex. The field attracted a healthy 358 runners from all over, with more than 30 different countries represented on the felt, and generated a prize pool of nearly HKD$8,000,000. Emerging victorious and claiming the HKD$1,777,000 first-place prize was Australia's Jeff Rossiter.
Plenty of notable faces were in the field for the event, including defending APPT Macau champion and member of PokerStars Team Online Randy Lew. He was joined by Team Pros Celina Lin, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Bryan Huang, Raymond Wu and Eugene Katchalov. Also in the mix were Dominik Nitsche, Tom Marchese and Mike Watson. Unfortunately, none of these players cashed in the event.
The top 44 spots were paid out from the field, and plenty of notables finished in the money. Kristan Lunardi (34th), David Allan (31st), Aaron Gustavson (22nd), Julian Powell (13th) and Gordon Huntly (11th) were all eliminated prior to reaching the final table, but there was still plenty of firepower in the final nine. The biggest names who joined Rossiter were Johnny Chan and Joseph Cheong.
Final Table Seating Assignments
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Johnny Chan | USA | 671,000 |
| 2 | Rong Fan | China | 745,000 |
| 3 | Joseph Cheong | USA | 854,000 |
| 4 | Adam Latimer | UK | 858,000 |
| 5 | Daoxing "Bobo" Chen | China | 616,000 |
| 6 | David Martirosyan | Russia | 495,000 |
| 7 | Jeff Rossiter | Australia | 1,555,000 |
| 8 | Andrey Shatilov | Russia | 597,000 |
| 9 | Jan Zeuschner | Germany | 645,000 |
Chan is well considered one of the biggest names in all of poker, but his run ended rather early with a seventh-place finish following Jan Zeuschner's bustout in ninth and Adam Latimer's elimination in eighth. On his final hand, the two-time World Series of Poker Main Event champion was all in with the 
against the 
for Rong Fan. Chan failed to come from behind and left with a payday of HKD$291,500.
Following Chan's exit were Russia's Andrey Shatilov in sixth place and China's Daoxing "Bobo" Chen in fifth place. Fan then busted in fourth place, leaving Rossiter, Cheong and David Martirosyan three handed for the title.
Cheong, who most notably finished in third place of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, wound up with another third-place result from this event. He failed to survive his final confrontation with Rossiter when his 
couldn't out-flip the 
for the eventual champion.
According to the PokerStars Blog, Cheong had moved all in preflop from the button for about 700,000, and Rossiter called from the big blind. The flop, turn and river ran out 
to give Rossiter a winning full house.
At the start of heads-up play, Rossiter held a big chip lead. His 6.125 million in chips well outmatched the 910,000 that Martirosyan held. From there, Rossiter's applied constant aggression to Martirosyan, before a stand was made.
On the final hand, Rossiter min-raised on the button, and Martirosyan reraised all in for about 800,000 from the big blind. Rossiter made the quick called with the 
to have Martirosyan's 
very much dominated. Both players paired up on the 
flop, but Rossiter's hand held strong after the 
hit the turn and 
fell on the river. For his runner-up efforts, Martirosyan took home HKD$1,226,000.
Final Table Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (HKD) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jeff Rossiter | Australia | $1,777,000 | $227,821 |
| 2 | David Martirosyan | Russia | $1,226,000 | $157,179 |
| 3 | Joseph Cheong | USA | $731,000 | $93,718 |
| 4 | Rong Fan | China | $579,000 | $74,231 |
| 5 | Daoxing "Bobo" Chen | China | $459,000 | $58,846 |
| 6 | Andrey Shatilov | Russia | $375,000 | $48,077 |
| 7 | Johnny Chan | USA | $291,500 | $37,372 |
| 8 | Adam Latimer | UK | $215,500 | $27,628 |
| 9 | Jan Zeuschner | Germany | $175,500 | $22,500 |
Adding this big win to his record, Rossiter pushes himself over $1.25 million in live tournament earnings. He had quite the year in 2011 with nearly one million in earnings, but 2012 hasn't been too shabby for him, either. With this score, Rossiter has earned over $300,000 this year.
Earning this title and $227,821 in cash proved to be the biggest win of Rossiter's young career, but his second-largest live score. In January of 2011, Rossiter took third place in the Aussie Millions Main Event for A$700,000 (USD$692,315). He then final tabled the APPT Macau Main Event that the aforementioned Lew won in November and took third place for HKD$1,306,000 (USD$167,791).
Rossiter might not be done in Macau just yet. Kicking off on Wednesday is the HKD$100,000 Main Event, and then there is the HKD$250,000 High Roller starting on Saturday.
For a complete list of payouts, click here, and PokerNews also welcomes you to read through the full recap from the PokerStars Blog.
Photos by Kenneth Lim Photography courtesy of PokerStars Macau.