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The first-ever Asia Pacific Poker Tour Queenstown Main Event, sponsored by online poker site PokerStars, has come to a close, and Marcel Schreiner of Germany has taken the title of champion. Following eight hours of grueling final table play and an additional four hours of epic heads-up action against native New Zealander Matt Yates, Schriener combined his A-Q hole cards with an A-Q-A flop to score the winning full house.

Schreiner was an early favorite in the event, earning the top spot on the leaderboard in his Day 1b starting flight and maintaining that lead on Day 2 and Day 3.

That’s not to say the journey was easy. New Zealand’s Alicia Sale actually amassed the biggest starting day chip lead on Day 1c, and Schreiner had to battle through a number of Australian and New Zealander pros before he was able to secure his victory. Some of the more notable local high stakes players at the final table included Tom Grigg, Hugh Cohen and Jonathan Karamalikis. Those players were booted in 6th, 8th and 9th place, respectively, but only after hours of final table action.

Queenstown has never hosted an APPT event in the past, and the overall registrant pool wasn’t quite as large as tournament organizers has expected. Despite these minor flaws, the event was able to generate the biggest prize pool ever offered at a Queenstown live poker tournament. Just under $343k was up for grabs, and Schreiner himself received an impressive $94,300 for his win.

The payout schedule quickly diminished following Schreiner’s $94k and Matt Yates’ $60k scores. John Waterman finished in 3rd place to win just over $35k, while Carl Knox and Daniel Laidlaw received $29k and $24k for their 4th and 5th place finishes. Aside from the aforementioned Grigg, Cohen and Karamalikis, China’s Xiao Dong Xia finished in 7th for $16k.