Dutchman Julien Nuijten Wins First Latin American Poker Tour in Rio

Julien Nuijten from Amsterdam, Holland, has just won the first PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, besting 313 other players from 28 countries in the three-day sell-out event, including 137 who won their seats online with PokerStars.

Julien, 19, was a dominant force in the tournament from early on and started today's final table with a massive chip lead. Normally an online high-stakes cash game player, Julien is one of many young players who have switched to poker from the strategy game Magic: The Gathering. He won the Magic world championship when he was only 15. Here in Rio, he took the $222,940 first prize after beating Brooklyn NY construction company manager Vitaly Kovyazin.

Julien said: "I was playing pretty aggressively heads-up and I knew I could break him. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I had some two horrible bad beats but in the end I got him on tilt."

Vitaly, 47, a Russian immigrant who moved to the USA 16 years ago, qualified for Rio using PokerStars Frequent Player Points, effectively free-rolling his way to his $117,750 prize for second place. He is already an established player and took 4th place in a World Series of Poker circuit event in 2006.

Nikolai Senninger, the PokerStars qualifier from Germany, took third place with a $86,350 prize to take home. Alex Brenes, 44, younger brother of Team PokerStars Pro Humberto, came 4th for $62,800.

The prestigious LAPT Rio event, the biggest poker tournament ever held in Brazil, also attracted top international poker stars including nine members of Team PokerStars Pro: Andre Akkari from Brazil, Humberto Brenes from Costa Rica and as well as Vanessa Rousso, former World Champions Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer, Victor Ramdin, Isabelle Mercier, Chad Brown and Gavin Griffin.

More than 150 Brazilians also took the opportunity to play in an international, championship event on home turf- the $2,500 No Limit Hold'em tournament was held at the Intercontinental Hotel, one of Rio de Janeiro's most luxurious venues, located on the beautiful Sao Conrado beach.

"This first Latin American Poker Tour event in Rio has been a phenomenal success", said LAPT President Glenn Cademartori. "I have already seen how passionate Latin Americans are about poker, but even I was surprised by the jubilant atmosphere here at the Rio tournament and the tremendous enthusiasm of both the players and their supporters. Latin America is one of the fastest-growing poker regions in the world and, thanks to the PokerStars.net LAPT, the region now has a high-stakes championship poker tour of its own."

The next two stop on Season 1 LAPT is San Jose in Costa Rica from May 22-24. More than 140 players have already won a seat for this event online with PokerStars and satellites are running until May 11, 2008. The third and final stop this season is Punta del Este in Uruguay from August 7-9.

Click here for a complete schedule, or visit www.lapt.com for more information.