The inaugural main event of the first World Poker Tour Amsterdam ended in a victory for a Dutch amateur player making his debut in a major live tournament this weekend when Farid Yachou from Leeuwarden took the honours and the main prize of Euro 215,000 and a seat at the 2016 WPT World Championship.
The Euro 3,300 buy-in main event attracted a field of 341, many of them top professional players, but after six days of intense and entertaining poker action it was Yachou who was the last man standing.
Among the notable names who had fallen by the wayside were Simon Trumper, Steve O’Dwyer, Noah Boeken, Scott Davies and Sorel Mizzi.
When the final table formed Yachou was one of the lower stacks at a table where Brit player Steve Warburton held the most chips, leading Jason Wheeler, Frederik Andersson, Kees Van Brugge and Joep van den Bijgaart.
When the heads up stage was reached Yachou faced Warburton, who continued to hold the chip lead. That didn’t last long as Yachou took the lead, only to lose it again to the more experienced Warburton.
The contest see-sawed for a total of 87 hands, but in the end Yachou was able to grab the lead and hold it long enough to eliminate the tenacious Brit, sending him home with the runner-up prize of Euro 150,000.
The rest of the table’s rewards were:
Kees van Brugge (Netherlands) Euro 90,000
Fredrik Andersson (Sweden) Euro 68,000
Joep van den Bijgaart (Netherlands) Euro 51,000
Jason Wheeler United States Euro 41,260 (this player had triumphed in the High Roller event a few days earlier).