Travel Report: LAPT8 Brazil, Day 1a -- Late to Bed, Late to Rise

I was speaking confidently yesterday about how thanks to my personal internal clock still being on Eastern time -- i.e., three hours behind the time here in São Paulo, Brazil -- the 3 p.m. start to Day 1a of the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final and 3 a.m. finish wouldn’t be too much of a problem for me.

Of course, once we actually got to 3 a.m. this morning and play finally wound down for the night, such enthusiasm had diminished somewhat as tiredness began to set in. Was actually pushing 4 a.m. before getting back to the room, and it took another hour after that to wind down and get some sleep.

Even so, I’m not too fatigued as I type this morning. The R$10,000 buy-in tournament featured a decent turnout yesterday of 132 total entries (including reentries), with a little less than half of them making it through to Friday’s Day 2. Armando Sbrissa, brother of Victor Sbrissa who actually won the LAPT Brazil Main Event here two years ago, ended the night as the chip leader.

There was a fun celebrity tournament as well yesterday that we gave some attention to in the coverage, with Brazilian footballer legend Ronaldo taking part and almost winning the sucker (he ultimately finished runner-up). Ronaldo definitely has some poker skills, having made that deep run in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event back in January (finishing 26th) and winning another celebrity tournament in Macau recently. He’ll be back at the PCA a couple of months, I’m told.

There should be considerably more entries today, perhaps even twice as many, so things should be busier and thus the day perhaps will roll on past a little more quickly. Or at least feel that way, as we’re necessarily going to be wrapping up around the same time again. Meanwhile I’m hoping to follow some NFL during the day, especially that Panthers-Cowboys game. Will feel a little strange to be away from home and not having turkey, sweet potatoes, and the like as usual.

In any case, when someone throws the red challenge flag today and they are spending time under the hood reviewing the last play, click over to the PokerStars blog for updates to see how things are going for us here in Brazil.