Dutch poker pro Joep “Pappe_Ruk” van den Bijgaart won his Platinum Pass package to the 2020 PokerStars Players Championship in Barcelona via the MegaPath promotion. It took him about a half-dozen tries to get through the first $2 step, then a couple of attempts at the $1K step before finally winning his entry.
The former PokerStars Team Pro has been playing poker since the mid-2000s, racking up numerous online scores and over $1 million in live tournament earnings including a seventh-place finish at EPT Berlin in 2011.
Joep van den Bijgaart in action
We also spotted “Pappe_Ruk” at the final table of the most recent WCOOP where he made it through a 11,254-entry field in Event #1-H ($215 NLHE) all of the way to heads-up versus his friend and fellow countryman Rens “Rens02” Feenstra before finishing runner-up.
That said, he understandably lists his six-month old daughter Justine as his greatest achievement. Besides poker, his hobbies include football and hanging out with friends.
