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Friday, Nov. 7, 2008

Fee exacts heavy toll at LAPT San Jose

By Jason Kirk

The second season of the Latin America Poker Tour is now in full swing after the LAPT San Jose event ended yesterday in record time.

The Herradura Ramada Plaza Casino in San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica, played host to what turned out to be a wild ride for the final nine players of a 219-strong field.

Two days of tournament poker had left each of them with a shot at the first LAPT title of the season, but in the end it was 20-year-old Ryan Fee of Philadelphia, Penn., who emerged victorious. Fee not only took down the title, but did so in dramatic - and efficient - fashion.

Final-table play began at 12:20 p.m. local time on Wednesday. For the first 90 minutes play was tense, with the short stacks looking for opportunities to double up but having to be content with taking the blinds and antes instead. The only action exciting enough to get the crowd out of its seats came courtesy of Brent Sheirbon's all-in bluff with the Hammer - 7-2 offsuit.

Local favorite (and 1997 WSOP $1,500 Seven-Card Stud champion) Maria Stern broke the deadlock at about 2 p.m. local time when she moved her short stack in the middle with K-Q. Jeff Patronack called with QQ, leaving Stern with only three outs. None of them came, sending Stern out in eighth place.

Claus Rasmussen, a former professional table tennis player from Norway, followed Stern to the rail in seventh place when he open-shoved with Q-7 only to run into Joel Micka's KK.

With the first two final-table finishers gone, it was time for Ryan Fee to get to work. His first victim was fellow American Patronack, who has every right to question why the poker gods have forsaken him. He got all his chips in the middle with A K against Fee's A K, but rather than a chopped pot he found himself out in sixth place; Fee flopped a flush when the board came J T 8 and hit a royal flush by the river.

Another 15 minutes would pass before Fee claimed his next scalp, this time taking down 20-year-old Canadian Andrew Chen. Fee was very much on the wrong end of the matchup, holding pocket eights against Chen's QQ, but the 6 5 4 flop gave him outs to a gutshot straight. The 7 on the turn left Chen drawing dead and looking for the payout cage.

Fee continued his final-table rampage just moments later when Jesus Bertoli of Venezuela open-shoved for his entire short stack. Fee called with K Q and was behind Bertoli's A 3, but the K Q 8 flop was all it took to send the South American home in fourth place.

Fee held a commanding chip lead at this point over rivals Micka and Sheirbon, with the latter hanging on to just $122,000 in chips with the blinds at $8,000/$16,000 and antes of $2,000. Micka would do the honors this time around, clipping Sheirbon's wings with pocket twos to send him home in third place.

Early on it appeared that the heads-up match between the two young American online pros, Micka and Fee, might run long. Micka, a heads-up and short-handed specialist, slowly and steadily chipped away at the lead held by his opponent. But one final hand was all it took to end Micka's dreams of a championship LAPT trophy.

Less than three hours after the tournament began, a pre-flop raising war turned into an all-in situation for Micka, with his 4 4 being on the heavy side of the coin flip against Fee's A T.

The K Q 7 flop left Micka in the lead but gave Fee additional outs for a gutshot straight. The 8 turn was inconsequential, but Micka's dreams were dashed when the A fell on the river to give Fee the pot, the title and a cool $287,773. Micka, meanwhile, took home $148,993 for second place.

The new champion told PokerListings.com's Arthur Crowson after the tournament that he had run "like Jesus on Day 1, horrible on Day 2, and like Jesus today." Be sure to check out Fee's take on his amazing San Jose run in Crowson's interview, "Land of the Fee."

With an exciting San Jose event now in the books, fans of the LAPT look to the Marival Resort in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico for their next poker fix.

The season's second event will take place there in early December, marking the first time a major poker tournament has been held in Mexico. As usual, the all-star tournament reporting team here at PokerListings.com will be on hand to bring you all the action.