Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 3: Learning about Brazil in the Bahamas

I was on for most of Day 2 of the Latin American Poker Tour Bahamas Main Event yesterday, getting a chance to leave a little early again and so wasn’t there for the last few hours of play.

A ton of big names went deep in the sucker, and some are still in it with 10 left. Just looking at the last half-dozen tables or so, Aaron Massey (11th), Ole Schemion (16th), Jeff Rossiter (17th), Mike Leah (20th), Daniel Weinman (21st), last year’s LAPT Bahamas winner Josh Kay (26th), Carter Gill (31st) Marvin Rettenmaier (32nd), Michael Telker (35th), Chris Moorman (39th), Juan Martin Pastor (43rd), Yann Dion (45th), and Michael Mizrachi (48th) all lasted until the latter levels last night.

Among those left in the top 10 are the leader Georgios Sotiropoulous, Joe Kuether, Will Molson, Darren Elias, Ismael Bojang, and the last of the Team PokerStars Pros (and representatives of Latin America), Andre Akkari. A solid line-up, although as I was talking about yesterday, the PCA tends to attract pretty tough fields all around, especially in the marquee events, so it isn’t surprising to see a lot of players with plenty of past results getting back to final tables.

Speaking of Akkari, I didn’t mention yesterday how before the start of Day 1 he and Felipe “Mojave” Ramos -- a “Friend of Team PokerStars” -- hosted the first of the “Breakfast with the Pros” sessions they have scheduled prior to just about every day of play here (pictured above via Neil Stoddart of the PokerStars blog).

The topic of their talk and Q&A was the “boom” presently happening for poker in Brazil, and I have to say despite having just been to Brazil for an LAPT event and having a lot of experience covering tourneys at other LAPT stops, I learned a few things I hadn’t known before about poker in Brazil.

There were a couple of big takeaways for me besides just learning a few more details about how poker has become especially popular in Brazil over recent years, something I could readily see to be the case from my visit to the Brazilian Series of Poker Millions and LAPT Grand Final in São Paulo in late November.

One was how poker’s proponents really have managed to associate the game more readily with sports than with other gambling games in Brazil. The lack of casinos there helps in that regard, as poker is generally played in poker-only rooms or in tournament series like the BSOP.

In America that way of “marketing” poker -- or even just defending the game from its detractors -- can’t only be marginally effective thanks to a legacy lasting more than two centuries placing poker firmly alongside not just other gambling games, but other “immoralities” put under the category of “outlaw” activities. (This is why attempts to “sportify” fail to resonate that much in the U.S., and in other places, too.)

The other interesting item I learned from the talk was how the recent downturn in Brazil’s economy has encouraged legislators now to start allowing casinos and other gambling games in order to find a new revenue source. Which means poker is interestingly going to be caught in the middle somewhat between groups with interest in the new casinos and gambling and the Ministério do Esporte and other who’ll want to continue to keep poker in the “sport” category.

You can read more about the talk here “Reporting on the Brazilian ‘boom.’”

Heading back over now for the LAPT Bahamas finale. It won’t be live streamed, unfortunately, but you can follow the updates from start to finish on the PokerStars blog.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: LAPT8 Brazil, Day 4 -- A Sizable Bridge, a Small Bet, and Saying Bye

It’s a wrap. Yuri Martins, probably Brazil’s most successful online player, won the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final in São Paulo on Sunday. It’s the biggest live score for Martins, and came at the end of an often interesting final table. In fact, there was one hand that was so interesting it turned out to be too strange to be true.

Afonse Henrique, also of Brazil (São Paulo, in fact), had led most of the day after starting the final table with a small chip lead over a couple of others, including Martins. In fact, at one point after a couple of hours’ worth of play Henrique actually had more than half of the total chips with eight players still left -- up around 6.5 million when the next highest had only about 1.5 million. Not sure I’ve seen that happen at a final table before (not live, anyway).

At the start of heads-up, though, Martins had scored the most recent two knockouts to take over the lead. Then Henrique earned a big double-up and after chipping up some more had Martins on the ropes, but the latter climbed back again.

At a lot of final tables reporters end up relying on live streams to follow the action as it isn’t always feasible to be near the table. Such was the case here, and my buddy Reinaldo (blogging in Spanish for the PokerStars blog) and I were kind of amazed to see one heads-up hand play out the way it did. Or seem to, that is.

I won’t narrate all the particulars, but the key bit of weirdness came when Martins appeared to have just 120,000 behind with about 5 million in the middle, then on the turn bet his last chips. Then Henrique folded, which seemed especially odd given the more than 40-to-1 pot odds being offered on a call.

It reminded me of playing for pennies online back in the day, where such hands would actually happen sometimes. You’d bet your last three cents into a four-dollar pot, and somehow your opponent would fold. As it turned out, they had things miscalculated somewhat on the stream -- Martins bet 1.2 million and earned the fold, not just 120,000 -- something we confirmed after following up. We had to find out for sure, it just seemed too strange to be believed.

It made me think of a post I’d written here several years ago about how sometimes exceedingly weird plays happen in tournaments, and when they do the reporter is in a tricky spot because even though true the report’s accuracy will necessarily be doubted. (Can’t put my finger on that post right now, but if I do I’ll come back and link here.)

Was still kind of an interesting fold, but not as wacky as it had seemed before. In any case, the hand was something of a momentum-shifter, and it wasn’t that long before Martins took the sucker down.

I actually was able to get out a little before play began on Sunday, walking about and snapping a few photos although there wasn’t too much to see. There is one of the photos above, of the nearby 453-foot tall Octavio Frias de Oliveira bridge that spans the Pinheiros River.

Lots of mopeds and bicyclists, lots of graffiti, lots of construction (and what looked like downed power lines, although I doubt they were live), and lots of clouds. In fact it began storming pretty hard just after I got back to the hotel, luckily missing getting doused.

Got done early enough to have one last nice dinner with Reinaldo and Sergio (who blogs in Portuguese and handles media coordinator duties, too). We snapped one last shot before leaving the Golden Hall, with the tables still ragin’ full on with the BSOP Millions having several days left to go.

Flying all day Monday. Check back through the PokerStars blog for those last reports from Brazil, and I’ll talk to you again from back in North America.

Travel Report: LAPT8 Brazil, Day 3 -- Winding Down

The original schedule for the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final in São Paulo, Brazil actually had Day 4 marked “if needed,” although it was pretty clear from early on in the tournament that they would need it.

Even so, when things got to moving relatively quickly on Saturday’s Day 3 -- the day when typically they’d play from 32 players down to the eight-handed final table -- there was some talk perhaps of continuing down to less than eight players so as to make Sunday a little shorter. That talk went away, though, once the pace slowed down again and everything wound up about midnight, making for the first less-than-10-hour workday we’ve had this week.

There were three former LAPT Main Event champs left among the 32 -- Alex Manzano, Patricio Rojas, and Caio Hey (who won LAPT Brazil last year) -- but none made it to today’s final table. Six Brazilians and two Chileans did, with Afonso Henrique leading.

Of the group, the best known left are the short stack Bruno Kawauti who finished 15th in the 2013 WSOP Main Event, Ricardo Chauriye who made the LAPT Peru final table this year, Andrés “gmcrafter” Herrera whose won a lot online, and Yuri “theNERDguy” Martins who has won a lot more online. Martins has like $5 million in online earnings, including finishing second to Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz in the 2014 WCOOP Main Event.

The day was pretty much all business with a lot of back-and-forthing from the laptop to the tournament area to keep up with the action. I had a picture of the Golden Hall in yesterday’s post, the enormous tournament room with 151 tables, all pretty much filled by the other BSOP Millions events including the Main Event of that festival. Makes for a crazy atmosphere, even as the LAPT Grand Final has gotten down to the last few tables and become a more intimate-seeming affair.

Meanwhile my plans for exploring São Paulo some before I go have been sidetracked somewhat by weather and other factors. We’re kind of locked inside the business district here in the southern part of the sprawling city, with nothing much for pedestrians to see beyond the surrounding buildings -- mostly offices -- and traffic. And without much extra time it’s hard to get out to do other things, so it may be I’ll have to wait until the next visit down for that.

Still, I’m eating especially well and very much enjoying meeting new people and hanging/working with the LAPT guys. More tomorrow. Meanwhile, check the PokerStars blog today to see who comes out on top in the LAPT Grand Final.

Travel Report: LAPT8 Brazil, Day 2 -- Part of the Crowd

It was a third straight long day behind the laptop, and now the 426-entry field is down to just 32 players at the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final in São Paulo.

There’s still a lot of extracurricular activity happening all around the featured tournament, with workshops, numerous side events, and the start of the Brazilian Series of Poker Main Event which like others in this BSOP Millions festival promises to feature an enormous field.

I’ve had a few conversations over the last few days both with Brazilians and others about the thriving poker scene here in Brazil. Everyone has been very friendly all week and especially accommodating of my sad lack of Portuguese, and I’ve enjoyed having these discussions and at least getting to know a bit about poker’s place in the culture, even if I haven’t gotten to explore much else as yet.

While São Paulo is kind of a central hub, there are numerous large cities (many nice vacation destinations, too) where poker is continuing to grow, and just the sight of something like what is pictured above makes it hard to deny poker’s prominence here.

You can click that photo to see a larger-sized image, one taken by the great Carlos Monti (in the center below). I am in there -- play “Where’s Shamus?” by looking to the upper right, just between the “Dourado / Golden” sign hanging down and the tournament clock. There I am, against the wall wearing a white shirt.

There are a 151 tables in the Golden Hall here in the World Trade Center São Paulo complex, and there have been many times when every single one of them has been in use.

The body clock is completely thrown off now, as I find I’m waking up early despite the late finishes. Still, I can’t help but be energized by the atmosphere, and with several big names from the LAPT still among the Grand Final field I’m as curious as anyone to see what happens over the next two days.

Check the PokerStars blog for more reports on the Grand Final.

Brazil Bound

Well, this one kind of snuck up on me. Has been a busy few months around the farm, and now I’m jetting off again on another one of my superlong commutes. Heading to São Paulo, Brazil this time for the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final, my first time making it to the largest country in South America, and the fifth-largest on this here entire spinning rock.

Between the World Series of Poker finally finishing up its Main Event earlier in the month and the European Poker Tour touching down at Malta recently and Prague soon, the LAPT sneaks in this week to finish up its eighth season, which as I’ve remarked here before represents something kind of impressive in terms of having established a genuine tradition.

The tour continues to grow and evolve. This marks the fifth season I’ve had the chance to check in on it. More than once before I’d been slated to make the Brazil trip, but various snafus and scheduling switcheroos arose to nix those earlier attempts. The LAPT actually started in Brazil with the first event of the first season being in Rio de Janeiro back in 2008, and has made it back most years since.

Don’t know too much about São Paulo at present other than the fact that its not only the most populated city in Brazil, but in the whole southern hemisphere. I’ve heard about the urban sprawl and how it goes on and on and on (seriously, click that pic above), as well as about the often rainy weather and its “Terra da Garoa” nickname (the “Land of Drizzle”).

I’ll have a good bit of time between now and touchdown at São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport tomorrow morning, and a whole day tomorrow to learn more as the tournament won’t be kicking off until Wednesday afternoon.

Glad to get back out on the road, and while being away during the Thanksgiving holiday will be strange it was going to be a low-key affair for us, anyhow, likely highlighted by that Carolina-Dallas tilt (are my undefeated Panthers actually an underdog?!).

Gotta run as they’ve just announced a gate switch on me here. Talk to you again at the other end of my 4,635-mile commute!