LAPT Uruguay

Thursday, August 7, 2008

LAPT Uruguay Day 1 Recap!

The inaugural season of the PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour reaches its final stop this week on the Uruguayan coast with a three-day, $2,500 affair in the resort town of Punta del Este.

It's the dead of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and the beaches are deserted in this playground for the wealthy and the glamorous.

In the summer months they make the voyage east from Montevideo and Buenos Aires to the sweeping dunes and the postmodern glass-and-steel vacation homes that take up the majority of the available land, but now few are to be seen - apart from in the poker room.

The third of three LAPT tournaments takes place at the Mantra Resort Spa Casino in the La Barra district of the city, a chill beachside neighborhood catering to the most discerning of South American fun-seekers.

Too cool for the beach!

It's too cold for the beach, however (the temperature hovers in the mid-50s), and so we turn our attention indoors to the rather cramped confines of the Mantra's casino. Here, a total of 351 hopefuls have ponied up the cash (or qualified online: fully 148 entrants have taken the cheap-and-easy route and taken advantage of the plethora of PokerStars event satellites) in hopes of leaving on Saturday evening the final champion of the LAPT's Season 1.

Those 351 players find themselves battling for a piece of the $851,175 prize pool, with 32 of their ilk taking a profit for their efforts. Full payout details are available here, but suffice it to say the $241,735 first prize stacks up nicely against the $222,940 and $274,103 awarded to the LAPT champions in Rio and San Jose, respectively.

Looking for some of that online qualifier money.

Among those including themselves in the hunt for the prize money and the oversized vase were 17 Team PokerStars pros, including bona fide Latin Americans like Humberto Brenes, Andre Akkari, Alexandre Gomes and IndyCar driver Gualter Salles, as well as superstars Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, Vanessa Rousso and Chad Brown.

Also making the trek to this unfamiliar soil were Brandon Cantu, WSOP husband-and-wife duo Max and Maria Stern, EPT4 San Remo champ Jason Mercier and bad boy of the WSOP's November Nine David "Chino" Rheem, as well as LAPT-San Jose champ Valdemar Kwaysser.

Fossilized, man.

Raymer and Rousso survived each other's company for the entirety of the day's nine levels, but fellow Team pro Akkari wouldn't be so lucky. Akkari found himself at the de facto Table of Doom midway through the day and barely lasted an orbit, getting into a skirmish with the Fossilman while holding queens to Raymer's aces and seeing the board fail to reverse his disadvantage.

Raymer would use the proceeds from that hand with Akkari and another fortuitous all-in moment while holding kings against an opponent's ace-king to ride to the top of the chip leaderboard in the later stages of the day.

The 2004 WSOP Main Event champ would be the first player to eclipse the $80,000 mark and although Alex Brenes would overtake him by day's end, he still bagged an impressive $70,000 going into the second day of play.

"You really did a number on that Akkari fella, Greg." "Thanks, Greg, I guess I did."

While the Fossilman was making his run to the top of the charts, however, many of his counterparts were falling by the wayside. Brandon Cantu was among the first to go, hitting the bricks with a pocket pair of tens against an opponent's pocket kings.

Rheem would follow shortly thereafter when his desperation shove with 9-6 couldn't hold up against an opponent's 6-4.

Meanwhile, Barry Greenstein seemed to spend his day trying not to fall asleep at the table. Greenstein arrived in Uruguay on the red-eye flight early on Thursday morning and at times in the proceedings seemed to be on the verge of nodding off.

Teddy bored!

The Bear made it stick until the sixth level but would ultimately falter, victimized by one Teddy Peterson when his pocket tens ran up against Peterson's aces and failed to improve, ending Greenstein's day and, one hopes, allowing him at least a little rest.

Gualter Salles made a run at the chip leaderboard midway through the day, pulling off an excellent semi-bluff with jacks on a queen-high flop and inducing a fold from an opponent with K-Q.

A few hands later the speed freak would get all-in with a pocket pair of fives on a J 6 5 flop against an opponent with the nut-flush draw. The board failed to bring diamonds and Salles was up to over $40,000 at a time when that number really meant something.

Black-flagged!

A few levels later, however, speed racer was shipping it with pocket tens on an 8-x-x-7 board, only to find himself up against an opponent with 8-7. So, that was a bit of a downer and after the river failed to bring a ten or another pair, another Brazilian Team PokerStars player found himself unable to carry on.

Action ended for the day at a few minutes past midnight local time with about 95 players still in contention. Not among them was Chad Brown, who fell with A-6 to pocket eights late in the ninth level, or Max Stern, who ran pocket fives into pocket tens a bit earlier in the night.

Cheerleader!

Both men will have the luxury of watching their significant others compete on Day 2, however, as both Vanessa Rousso and Maria Stern remain credible threats for the title. Also still in the hunt are Valdemar Kwaysser, Costa Rican sensation Steven Thompson, Alex and Humberto Brenes, Veronica Dabul and the Kiwi Kid, James Honeybone.

Action resumes on Friday at noon local time (11 a.m. EDT) and will continue until only nine players remain. Keep it locked on PokerListings.com for comprehensive coverage of this landmark event - and next time, c'mon down yourself!