APAT has had a great year in Belgium! With over 1200 players in 4 weekends, we had an amazing first season of the APAT Belgian Amateur Poker Tour (BAPT).
As is the case with most national teams in sports, we believe that the best players should get a shot at playing for their country. And that's exactly what TEAM BELGIUM this year is all about!
It is my great pleasure to present you with our 2015 ALL STAR TEAM:
NIKI RASKIN (captain)
You all know Niki as a Team Belgium member last year, and this year he earned the right to be selected captain of the team.
Niki joined the army in 1999 and he learned about poker during a mission in Kosovo in 2007. After returning home he started playing with friends and he constantly improved his game. For a while he worked as a commentator at a local poker radio channel, before really hitting the felt 18 months ago. Since then he's been playing regularly, both live and online. He also co-manages a local poker club in his hometown, attracting more than 80 players on a regular basis.
Back in January, Niki won the first leg of the BAPT and later on scored another deep run during the Benelux APC in Spa. He also had numerous smaller cashes live and online and crowned himself as the 2015 Player of the Year!
For Niki, it will be his 2nd consecutive visit to the WCOAP. In 2015, besides playing for Team Belgium, he finished 5th in the High Roller. Online he's a serious 10NL Zoom grinder and recently he also started playing OFC!
TRIFON PAPPAS
Trifon earned his place by winning the BAPT Grand Final in November (Benelux APC). but he didn't stop there. A week later he continued his dominance by winning the Online Main Event as well, making him the first double gold winner in Belgium. And he's hungry for more!
His parents are Greek, but Trifon was born in Belgium. He started playing poker in 2011; however with his full time job in sales, he doesn't have too much time to play poker. When he does, he prefers to play live, but the lack of time pushes him online as well.
When you are up against him, just hope that he gets dealt pocket sevens every time. he absolutely hates that hand. Normally he never plays it, but during the HU of his win in Spa, he decided to go against his own rules. It costed him dearly, but he was able to turn things around on his way to victory!
Besides poker he loves to play (and coach) basketball, and he's also very much into cars.
MASSIMO DI PERRI
In order to win the Team Event, we'll have to try and beat the strong Italian team. so we decided to add some Italian flavor of our own!
Massimo Di Perri only recently started playing poker, but this guy has it all! He absolutely dominated the final stages of the 3rd BAPT leg (Belgian APC) in Namur on his way to claim the title, and we will definitely see a lot more of him in the next couple of years. And if we do, I'll be very happy to tell everyone that this guy's first win was an APAT event!
However, despite both his parents being Italian, he doesn't speak Italian of his own. (So much for eavesdropping when the Italians are talking tactics).
Massimo often played Italian card games with his family when he was young, but he only played poker for the very first time no more than 1 year ago during a ski trip with friends. He fell in love with the game and immediately started learning and playing more!
In September 2015 came his first real online score when he cashed for 1.000$ and he used part of that money to enter his first ever live tournament: the APAT event in September. The rest is history.
Being a student, Massimo has plenty of time to play live tournaments on a regular basis and he'll be looking for a 2nd APAT Gold in London!
JOACHIM WALLAERT
This is another guy who rightfully earned his place amongst the top players of 2015. His team members all won a Main Event this year, but that turned out not to be Joachim's thing. Instead he made it look easy to ship Side Events, winning no less than 3 (!!) of them during the Benelux APC (BAPT Grand Final) in November.
Joachim started playing poker when he saw Peter Eastgate become World Champion. He immediately opened a play money account on Stars and started playing some very small (freeroll) live tournaments. After a while, he got more involved in poker and started co-running a big freeroll competition in the West of Flanders. And when APAT came around, he started playing more live tournaments.
Besides being a player, Joachim is a certified poker dealer and he often acts as a TD during local poker tournaments. Recently he got more involved with APAT as well, with the new APAT.be website as his most important contribution so far.
He does have one request: If somebody could get him in touch with Liv Boeree, that would be very much appreciated. In return, he might even let you win a Side Event.
