PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour has new champ

TourneyBlog Staff - 20 Apr 2009

Mar del Plata is done, and the new PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour champ is young Dominc Nitsche.

Dominic Nitsche is 18 years old. He is still in high school. Heck, he may have some homework to finish after this. And after playing in his first ever live tournament, he's an LAPT champion. After he knocked out fellow big stack Mark Ioli late on Day 2 to give him a massive chip lead, some of us joked that he could do away with this final table like a one-man wrecking ball. He didn't end up taking out every player, but he did win the most critical hand at the final table, ending up with two-thirds of the chips in play by the time we reached four-handed play.

Clocking in at less than four hours of play, it was the fastest final table in LAPT history and perhaps the fastest televised final table we've ever seen.

291 players bought in to the LAPT's Grand Final in Mar del Plata, Argentina. 27 of them came away with a nice chunk of change, the majority of the prize pool handed out to the final nine this afternoon. Here's how they stacked up as the cards went in the air:

Seat 1: Jason Skean (338,000)
Seat 2: Rodolfo Awad (170,000)
Seat 3: Alfons Fenijn (65,000)
Seat 4: Sergio Farias (474,000)
Seat 5: Jose Barbero (181,000)
Seat 6: Dominik Nitsche (817,000)
Seat 7: Jorge Landazuri (428,000)
Seat 8: Leo Fernandez (329,000)
Seat 9: Derek Lerner (151,000)

We were prepared for a rumble in the high school cafeteria when it came to our heads-up battle between 18-year old Nitsche and 19-year old Landazuri, but just like our last stop on the LAPT in Punta del Este, Uruguay, heads-up play lasted all of one hand.
On a flop of K89, Dominik Nitsche bet out 50,000 and Jorge Landazuri raised to 140,000. Nitsche called. On the T turn, Landazuri bet out