A total of 48 players representing the USA, England, Vietnam, Greece, Brazil, Australia, Israel and China gathered at the Golden Nugget for the inaugural World Team Poker event yesterday with $400,000 and extensive bragging rights on the line. The format was shootout rounds of NL Hold'em, Limit Hold'em and PLO with the top two players from each of the five round one tables advancing to the final.


Teams were only allowed one representative at the final table though so if they were lucky enough to have more than a single eligible player they could combine their chip stacks and let the sole player continue.


Sadly the England team of Ben Roberts, Dave Ulliott, Surinder Sunar, Peter Costa, Dave Colclough and Joe Beevers couldn't follow in the footsteps of England's Twenty 20 cricketers and bowed out in the opening round. Doyle Brunson's team USA and Eli Elezra Israeli's also hit the rail without troubling the final table.


Vietnam were the first team eliminated from the final table followed by Australia and Greece. That left Brazil and China to fight it out for the title. The South Americans went into heads up play with a 3 to 1 chip advantage going into heads up play but couldn't keep up the momentum against some canny Chinese play. China eventually sealed the win in a PLO clash when their Ks9s7h4h held up against the Brazilian's 10d7s6h5c.


The Chinese team of Johnny Chan, David Chiu, Maria Ho, Rich Zhu, Chau Giang, Winifred Yu and Derek Cheung pocketed $300,000 for the win, ample reward for winning through after a marathon 19 hour session. TAGS: Poker News, China, win, World, Team, Poker