Checking in Before Chile

Airport blogging again, this time from a quiet terminal in the Hartsville-Jackson Atlanta International airport where I have a bit of a wait. No free wi-fi here (boo), but I can make do for a short while to deliver a brief report explaining why I’m here.

This is my transfer point, and I have a few hours to kill before boarding my flight to Santiago, Chile. From there I’ll be shuttling it over to Viña del Mar for the Latin American Poker Tour’s Chile event, the first stop of Season 7 (following the PCA which gets cross-listed).

Have been to a few LAPT stops before, but never to Viña del Mar and so am curious to see some new sights as well as to reunite with the great staff, media, and the players, too, who together make LAPT events especially fun ones to cover.

I’ve already been asked if I’m a wine drinker -- alas, I’m not -- as the “Vineyard of the Sea” is a good destination for such. Am a lover of all seafood, though, and so am hoping to enjoy a few good meals amid the poker.

Am also looking forward to seeing one of my favorite poker couples, Team PokerStars Pro Angel Guillen and Lynn Gilmartin, who I know will be there. Word is Lynn is gearing up to play her first LAPT this week. Besides being a great presenter and interviewer, Lynn’s a good player, too, having a few scores to her credit. I’m remembering as well her deep run in last summer’s media event at the WSOP, where if I’m not mistaken she took third, matching the finish of another poker media type who always likes to bring that up whenever possible.

Was thinking of Lynn last night as I tuned in over at Fox Sports to catch the premiere of the WPT Alpha8 that had been scheduled and for which Lynn hosts. You’ll recall the kickoff event in that new $100K buy-in tourney series took place in Florida late last summer, and I happened to have been there to help cover the sucker. Thus was I especially curious to see the edited product, but alas bad weather caused NASCAR went late with its Sunday race and the show was preempted.

But now Lynn will be on the other side of things, and I’m already thinking I’ll have to interview the interviewer at some point this week. (That’s her, of course, with Joe Hachem from the Aussie Millions a year ago.) Stay tuned here as well as I’ll be checking in with updates and pointing you to the PokerStars blog for all of the reporting on where the chips end up in Chile.