As the world of poker opens up, the Asian pacific poker Tour opened up new doors to those in China. With the first licensed poker tournament within the People's Republic of China, the APPT welcomed 352 players to the place that could be called the Las Vegas of the East, Macau.

The Grand Waldo Hotel and Casino set the stage for many international players to battle it out for the $222,460 prize going out to its winner. Only Australia was able to claim international superiority with 2 members making up the final nine of this melting pot, one of them being none other then 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Joe Hachem.

The APPT is sponsored by PokerStars, and along with Hachem, Team PokerStars member Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier cashed in 5th place. But it was the aggressive play of Dihn Le that took home the $222,460 with the final hand call coming from PokerStarsBlog.com:

With the blinds at 20,000/40,000, Dinh raised to 240,000 before Tan bumped it up to 720,000. The impetuous Dinh Le, who had already pushed all-in out of turn on the first hand of heads-up play, again threw his hand in the air to indicate he was all-in, and Tan was quick to call.

Dinh Le turned over one of the most successful hands in major tournaments of recent years: pocket eights. It was the hand that steered both Greg Raymer (2004) and Jerry Yang (2007) to their respective World Series of Poker main event victories.

However, Tan was well in the game with As 10c, but the board of 6s 5s Qd 2h Jd completely missed Tan. However, a $US129,536 prize wasn't a bad souvenir for Tan's holiday to Macau.