Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 1

Long, long day hustling back and forth on the second floor of the Atlantic City Casino, helping cover the first day of the LAPT Lima Main Event. Began mid-morning with various setting-up-shop type preliminaries, and it wasn’t until 3 a.m. that the last of the tasks had been completed and we could put the “closed” sign up for the night.

All of which is to say, there ain’t a lot of time this morning for your humble gumshoe to sit back and meditate on the meaning of it all. So it goes. Much like playing in a poker tournament, you find yourself making decisions all day, constantly faced with puzzles to solve or situations to analyze. When it’s over, you might reflect on what it all meant, but there isn’t time for that as it’s happening. ’Cos there’s something else you gotta deal with. Like right now.

I will say that I’m especially fortunate to be working with Dr. Pauly, alongside F-Train (who is here for PokerNews), and Reinaldo (the PokerStars.la blogger). That picture above is of the four of us, taken by Carlos, our photographer from Argentina.

Between them, Otis helping us from afar from back in the States, and the always excellent LAPT staff, there’s a fantastic network of support here to help a jingle-brained sap get along. That they’re also a buncha cool, funny, smart cats helps a lot, too.

Total field yesterday was 350, and after 10 hours of play it had been trimmed to 116. Playing down to 24 today, then down to the final eight-handed table tomorrow.

Was a fairly typical first-day vibe yesterday, with mostly patient play early on, then many all-ins once the antes had begun to increase. And as was the case last June when I was here before, the atmosphere was mostly jovial with a lot of laughter and people appearing to enjoy themselves -- as I’ve noted before, a bit different than what you typically encounter at the WSOP.

Might have ourselves a somewhat shorter day today. Actually, after the 15-plus hour marathon of yesterday, it’ll just about have to be shorter. In any case, do check out the LAPT Lima posts over on the PokerStars blog to see what we’re up to. And see also Pauly’s Tao of Poker and Tao of Pauly for more scribblin’ on our Peruvian adventure.