Europe, captained by Sam Trickett, first dispatched Team Asia-Pacific 2-1 to set about the decisive match against Phil Ivey’s Team Americas.
Americas, which received a bye thanks to winning the last Caesars Cup in 2011, was stacked with Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Greg Merson, Antonio Esfandiari and the aforementioned Ivey.
“It was fun,” said Tickett. “It was played in the right spirit. Everyone enjoyed themselves and obviously it’s always nice to win.”
While Team Americas had the big-name team, a scrappy European team comprised of Trickett, Holden, Dominik Nitsche and Marvin Rettenmaier proved up to the task.
“Not all the best European players were in town,” he said.
“I mean Australia is a long ways away, especially when you’re effectively competing for no money. We had a good bunch of players though, with a good understanding of the game.”
Holden Makes Heroic Comeback Against Merson
Europe won the first heads-up match but the Americas Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth tied it up, paving the way for a heads-up final between the USA’s Greg Merson and England’s Sam Holden.
Merson had Holden down to a few big blinds but Holden doubled up and then stormed back to win the title.
The only thing on the line was pride, but that was more than enough for some players to enjoy the game.
“America claims to have invented poker so it’s good to beat them at their own game,” said Sam Holden.
With the victory Europe became the only country to win two Caesars Cup title. The Americas have one victory all-time.
This was the first year that Team Asia-Pacific competed in the Caesars Cup.
The team, which was made up of captain Joe Hachem and Jackie Glazier, Jeff Lisandro, Andrew Hinrichsen and cricketer Shane Warne, had high hopes of capturing the Cup on home soil but were instead eliminated first.
The entire competition took under four hours to complete. It’s unknown when the next Caesars Cup will be played but the event has traditional taken place every two years.
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