Massimo Di Perri Wins Belgian Championship
Playing poker for 6 months…that is all the experience Massimo Di Perri needed to win a national APAT Championship! With an amazing performance he absolutely dominated the final stages of the Main Event en route to a €6.397 payday in his first ever casino tournament!
With 317 players entering the Main Event of the Belgian Amateur Poker Championship, this edition again proved to be a big hit! And with a further 264 entries in the 4 side events, there was more than €40.000 EUR to be awarded!
Massimo Di Perri started playing poker 6 months ago when he got introduced to the game by some friends. Quickly hooked to the game, he headed over to a local poker club (Brussels Poker Club) near his home to get his first experience to tournament poker.
Eager to taste the excitement of a big casino tournament, APAT was exactly what he needed! He headed to the Casino de Namur for the first time and registered for Day 1B and finished the day with a well above average stack.
On Day 2 he continued his rise to the top of the leaderboard and easily reached the money places. But he didn’t stop there; by the time the tournament reached the final table, he held 1/3rd of all the chips in play.
His momentum seemed to disappear at the start of that final table when a few of his compatriots doubled up through him, but that turned out to be only a slight glitch. On his way to his very first poker title, he was responsible for the last 4 eliminations (6 in total). His last victims were Antony Simon of France, who was not too disappointed with his €4.000 consolation price, and Dutch player Brandon Van Kerkwijk who earned himself €2.800. With online APAT regular Salvatore Pino in 4th place we had another player who entered his first ever casino tournament! He never expected to go this far, but he was a bit disappointed for missing out on a shiny APAT medal. Two other APAT regulars, Didier De Swert and Michael Dillen reached the Final Table, but their title dreams ended in 8th and 9th place respectively.
Tom Clark was the only APAT UK player able to cash in the Main Event, he finished 22nd after a 2-day roller coaster ride.
In the Side Events we noted victories for Stef Flamand, Euan Rolston, Maxime Leroy and Jonas Sprengers. UK’s Don Roberts finished 2nd in the PLO.
In November the APAT circus will again come to Belgium. From 10 to 15 November the beautiful Casino de Spa will host the inaugural APAT Benelux Poker Championship. With no less than 9 events in 6 days (including the Belgian Team Championship and the very first Mix Max tournament in a Belgian casino) this is the biggest Amateur Poker Festival Belgium has ever seen!
