Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 4: Smart Like Sotiropoulos

The LAPT Bahamas Main Event final day went relatively quickly, with 10 players getting down to one after just over six hours of play.

Georgios Sotiropoulos had the lead to start the day, and might have lost it briefly just before they got to the offical eight-handed final table when he was back in front. From there he never lost the lead again, building a huge stack and constantly pressuring the others to take down the tournament and claim the $308,220 first prize.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sotiropoulos becomes the first LAPT champion from Greece (not too many Greek players make it to South America for LAPTs). Meanwhile Andre Akkari was the first out yesterday in 10th, the last of the LAPT regs to be eliminated.

The most interesting thing about the final table was recognizing how Sotiropoulos -- who has a WSOP Europe bracelet, a Sunday Million win, and now is pushing $2 million lifetime in live earnings -- was himself recognizing the ICM implications in play when he had a big lead and was surrounded by shorties with less than a third of his chips. Smart player, and while up against some tough opponents who knew what they were doing, too, he knew exactly what to do to make his success especially likely.

That pic above (via Carlos Monti of the PokerStars blog) is from heads-up play. Sotiropoulos’s opponent at the end, Taylor Von Kriegenbergh, played a smart game, too, I thought, ably picking spots and working his way into a second-place finish despite starting the day ninth of 10 in the counts. But no one was topping Sotiropoulos yesterday.

Just got an invite to go enjoy a little water sliding, and so I’m cutting it short to do that before I go in later to help out with covering the PCA Main Event. Be smart like Sotiropoulos and head over to the PokerStars blog to follow it all.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti/PokerStars blog.