You don’t need brawn to win the World Cup of Poker, but you certainly need a whole lot of smarts and a whole lot of guile. Team China certainly showed a surplus of both as they plowed through the sixth season of the PokerStars World Cup of Poker.

A Grueling Battle

Everyone was expecting the World Cup of Poker VI to be over in a flash because of its very format. But it seems as if they were wrong, as the action went by in a snail’s pace. Of course, that’s not to say that the games were boring. On the contrary, the games were rather riveting, with the teams fighting tooth and nail to keep abreast. However, in all tournaments, there’s always one team that has to be first to go, and this time, it was Chile’s turn. They went into the final day short-stacked, with only 20,000 in chips on hand. Team China made short work of them and ousted them from the game. It was another two hours before the next team was eliminated. The Norwegian team, fighting bravely, had to hit the rails as their stack dwindled to nothing. Finland was next to go, and then Italy. Germany gave a really good fight, having started the day as the second to the last in chip count and emerging as the chip leader only to fall once again, and ultimately they too had to go. Team US was next to hit the rails, followed closely by Canada. Finally, only Taipei and Croatia were left to battle it out.

A Quick Heads Up Battle

Though the eliminations had taken quite a while, stretching on for hours, the final heads-up battle only lasted for a matter of minutes. Croatia had entered the day as the leader in chips, having amassed a large chip lead earlier in the tournament. But by the end of the last day, they only had 79,000. Pitted against Taipei’s 461,000, Croatia’s chips were mere fodder. With no other way around the whole thing, Croatia’s JH9C clashed with Taipei’s AS2S. The air was incredibly tense, as the flop came out in favor of Taipei. Croatia had a decent two pair, but Taipei had a flush. In the end, Team China brought home the cup and earned themselves a nifty $100,000. Wan Hsan Lai, Wen-Hao Pan, Tsu-Chi Wang, Tseng Wei Ming, and their team captain Raymond Wu, would all be getting $20,000 each.