Julien Nuijten Wins Latin American Poker Tour Rio

While on vacation from his home in Amsterdam, 19-year-old Julien Nuijten competed in the first-ever PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and outlasted 314 runners to win the largest poker tournament ever to be hosted in the continent.

Nuijten entered the final table as a significant chip leader, having Vitaly Kovyazin, who was second in chips, covered by more than 2-1. In the end, it came down to these two heads up. When it was all over, Nuijten had the chips and the nearly $223,000 first-place prize.

The following are the complete final table results:

1. Julien Nuijten — $222,940
2. Vitaly Kovyazin — $117,750
3. Nikolai Senninger — $86,350
4. Alex Brenes — $62,800
5. Eduardo Henriques — $47,100
6. Oliver Kugler — $31,400
7. Rafael Pardo — $23,550
8. Juan Carlos Burguillos — $15,700
9. Severin Walser — $11,775

Nuijten’s poker experience comes mainly from playing high-stakes cash online. He also joins the likes of Noah Boeken, David Williams, and Dario Minieri in making the transition from the Magic: The Gathering card game to poker. At age 15, Nuijten won the World Championship of Magic.

The PokerStars live updates logs for this event are available at CardPlayer.com.