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.

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: 2016 PCA, Day 2: El Nueve for the LAPT

On Thursday I had the luxury of working only part of the day, which still translated to about a nine-hour shift as I went in during the late morning and didn’t leave until around eight. My focus was on the start of the Latin American Poker Tour Bahamas Main Event, a three-day, $2,200 buy-in tournament that allowed reentries up until after the dinner break.

Was once again kind of flummoxed by the turnout for the LAPT Bahamas Main Event, although not to the degree I was a year ago.

Last year on the day before the event began I interviewed then-LAPT President David Carrion about the upcoming season, also asking him for his thoughts regarding the possible turnout for the event a year ago. He said to me he hoped the event (which had a $3,000 buy-in) would draw 250 entries, referring to the fact that it had only been announced a few weeks before and so a lot of players wouldn’t necessarily be aware of it happening right at the very start of the festival.

As the day progressed, it became obvious 250 was an especially conservative goal, and by the time they’d closed registration there were an incredible 736 entries. I almost felt like David had been sandbagging, although I think he likewise was very surprised.

This year Day 1 went similarly, with just about 200 in their seats at the start, then people continuing to arrive in droves all afternoon with many reentering as well. By the end there were 851 entries, exceeding last year’s total by a wide margin.

The lower buy-in helped, and actually means the prize pool isn’t quite what they had last year. It somewhat conforms to the new format the LAPT will be adopting in Season 9 where the Main Event buy-ins are going to be reduced a bit to $1,500. Still, it’s again a nice kickoff to the tour’s season, and again introduced a lot of players to a sorta-kinda “LAPT experience” here in the middle of the Caribbean.

Tons of top pros are in the field, suggesting another tough final table will be coming on Saturday when that trophy pictured above will be awarded (pic courtesy Carlos Monti of the PokerStars blog). Last year the American Josh Kay won the sucker, but he had to get through a final table that included Martin Finger (who finished second), Jose Carlos Garcia (fourth), Taylor Paur (fifth), Dimitar Danchez (sixth), and Mustapha Kanit (eighth). Some are remembering it as the most impressive final table of the PCA a year ago, although I think the FTs produced by the high roller events might have been even tougher.

There are a huge variety of events on the PCA schedule, with lots of lower buy-in ones (some as low as $120 or $300) that surely attract a lot of amateurs and recreational players. But generally speaking -- at least among the events with buy-ins of, say, $2,200 and above -- the quality of skill among the players here is especially high, perhaps the highest (on average) of any tournament series.

There were 220 players making it through to today’s Day 2 of the LAPT Bahamas, where I’ll be again for another one of those nine-hour “partial” shifts. Check the the PokerStars blog to find out how things go in that one as well as the in the $100K Super High Roller and Day 1a of the PCA Main Event.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 1: Super High Rolling

Completed a first full day of reporting from the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure yesterday, where the focus was just about entirely on the $100,000 Super High Roller event that took up just a few tables in the front right-hand corner of the huge poker room (a.k.a. Convention Center) at the Atlantis Resort.

We were stationed in the exact opposite corner of the room -- actually, to be more accurate, just outside of the room in a back area usually reserved for the EPT Live (or, here, PCA Live) folks and the television crew shooting for the edited shows that come later. We were repositioned for this first day mainly because the set for the live streaming and TV shows was still being constructed.

I share the detail of where we were sitting just to point out that we were traversing the entire room each time we walked from our laptops to the SHR event and back, and thus necessarily saw how all of the other side events were getting impressive turnouts as the entire room managed to fill up with activity. In past years the PCA would start a little more slowly, but it looks like more players have arrived early this time around.

That may be due in part to the dozen events on the schedule for Day 1. But I’m also thinking the LAPT Bahamas event that begins today might have gotten a few extras out early this time. This will be the second year the LAPT has put on such an event at the PCA, one that serves as a “Main Event” for the tour as well as a $2,200 buy-in “preliminary” event as far as the entire PCA schedule goes. Will be curious to see if the turnout on Thursday matches or exceeds the 736 entries they had at LAPT Bahamas a year ago.

Like I say, though, the Super High Roller had everyone’s attention, and most of the usual suspects were out to participate in that one. That is Fedor Holz up above (courtesy Neil Stoddart and the PokerStars blog), just a few days removed from winning $3.4 million-plus in that $200K SHR in Manila, and a couple of weeks on from winning a $100K WPT Alpha8 and almost $1.6 million in Las Vegas.

Bill Perkins bought in three times, busting all three, and he intends to come back to try a fourth entry at the start of Day 2 before late reg closes. 2015 WSOP Main Event champion Joe McKeehen took part and did well all day, ending with a top five stack. Businessman Talal Shakerchi finished with the chip lead, with Kathy Lehne (also of the business world) in third position. Lehne took runner-up in that WPT Alpha8 in St. Kitts I covered in December 2014. (She also final-tabled the WPT Alpha8 at the Bellagio in December, taking sixth.)

While the focus was often on the hands, the table talk was equally interesting -- even more so, in some cases. Daniel Negreanu got into an extended monologue about Phil Hellmuth at one point that was obviously entertaining the table quite a bit, including a reference to Donald Trump and some of the parallels between the Poker Brat and the Donald. (You can probably imagine what they are.)

The SHRs are always interesting tournaments to be around. You get a mix of elite pros and the amateurs who are nonetheless serious and usually competitive. There’s always a relaxed feel, suggesting in a strange way a negative correlation between the size of the buy-in and the amount of stress felt by the players.

Gonna move off the SHR today as my beat now becomes that LAPT Bahamas event over the next three days. Might have to wander over there to the SHR once in a while, though, just to see who makes it through to Friday’s final table.

Meanwhile you can wander over to the PokerStars blog today for coverage of the Super High Roller, LAPT Bahamas, other side events, and more.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2015 PCA, Day 4 -- Kay More Than Okay

More rapid-fire posting this morning as yet another day of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is quickly approaching.

They managed to wrap up the LAPT Bahamas Main Event yesterday, which for most of the day was The Martin Finger Show as he ran white-hot while mowing down most of the final table, knocking out everyone, in fact, except one player.

Then the German now living in Austria took a better than 2-to-1 chip lead up against the Michigan-based Josh Kay who had started the day in first position. Kay had been particularly snug for most of the day, but opened up noticeably at that point with some aggressive play. Then he began picking up several big hands, flopping trips, a straight, and a flush within the space of just a few hands and earning value in each case.

Kay had grabbed the lead. Then in a final hand that saw him flopping a set of nines he was able to get Finger to commit his last chips on the strength of a turned top pair, and one card later Kay had won. He ran incredibly well at the end, but Kay played very well, too, and came away a worthy champ.

Kay’s victory saved us from coming up with a term to describe a player winning an EPT Main Event, a WSOP bracelet, and a LAPT Main Event -- something Finger was on the precipice of accomplishing before getting thwarted at the end. Still, the turn of events allowed me to make one big pun at the end (“Kay breaks Finger’s momentum”).

Here’s my full recap at the end that links back to all of the Day 3 action. Meanwhile, the Main Event moves on to Day 2 today with just over 500 players still in action there. A few more can still join in as late registration doesn’t close until the start of play today.

Click over to the PokerStars blog today for PCA Main Event coverage, and also follow the live reporting at PokerNews for hands, counts, and the usual.

Travel Report: 2015 PCA, Day 3 -- The Long, Long, Long LAPT Event

Working on fumes here today as we had a second straight very long day with the LAPT Bahamas Main Event -- hardly surprising given the much, much, much bigger-than-planned-for field -- and the final day is about to start.

Was a fun day, and lasted so long I barely remember getting to chat with Jesse May for a while in the hall before things started. Actually saw and talked to James McManus, too, this week, and it was nice to reconnect.

They played down to the last 11 last night, which was a little shy of the eight-handed final table but close enough. Looking forward to the EPT Live guys doing their full-blown cards-up coverage of the final table (as they do on the EPT), which will be a bit of a change for a LAPT final table.

Also different with this LAPT final table is the fact that none of the players who’ll be there have ever played an LAPT event before.

There are in fact two PCA Main Event champs still left -- Galen Hall (2011) and Dimitar Danchev (2013). EPT and WSOP winner Martin Finger is there, as is WSOP bracelet holder Taylor Paur, Mustapha Kanit, and Aaron Massey. Josh Kay, a Michigan-based player, has the chip lead going into today, with a 21-year-old Polish player named Jose Carlos Garcia.

Read LAPT Bahamas reports from yesterday and today over at the PokerStars blog, and tune in over at PokerStars.tv starting at 1 p.m. ET today to watch the finish.

Travel Report: 2015 PCA, Day 2 -- The Surge

Last fall when I was in Lima reporting on the final event of Season 7 of the Latin American Poker Tour, I first heard about the plan to kick off Season 8 with a regular LAPT event in the Bahamas. The tournament would be positioned as a kind of special preliminary tourney at the PCA, and thus could draw both the regular tour players (a number of whom already go to the PCA every year) and a lot of new players who’d never participated in an LAPT event before.

My initial reaction was that it sounded like a cool idea, and I liked the thought of mixing together players from all over. I’m a big fan of the LAPT for a variety of reasons, including the many great characters and interesting people who play those events, so I liked thinking about a lot of players from the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere getting to play a big event with that crowd.

I also thought it would be a big event, maybe even the biggest the LAPT had ever staged. But then I interviewed LAPT President David Carrion on Tuesday and he suggested that the turnout might be on the modest side, saying that he’d be happy if it drew 250 entries. I shared Carrion’s thoughts over on the PokerStars blog, then came in yesterday very curious to see just how the turnout would turnout.

It was clear during the first hour that David’s hope to reach 250 was going to be a cinch, as there were already close to 200 in seats from the start and late registration (and the reentry period) lasted through the end of the dinner break. As the afternoon wore on they cruised past 250, then 350, then 450, and we were all laughingly trying to come up with suitable adjectives (“staggering,” “stunning,” “jaw-dropping”) to describe the size of the field.

By the dinner break the number was way over 600, then following the final tallying during the early evening it was determined there were 736 total entries, with 532 unique players and 204 reentries. Just incredible. I had to evoke the water slide here called “The Surge” in my end-of-day recap as I was out of adjectives to use.

That meant a prize pool of close to $2 million, just shy of the LAPT’s biggest ever at Brazil last year. The scheduled first prize of $367,928 is almost a tour record as well, with only the $381,030 Dominik Nitsche won in Argentina back in Season 2 being higher.

The LAPT folks were all predictably elated, and I also was excited to see the event prove such a hit. I thought back to David’s references to the event overlapping with the PCA Main Event (which starts today) and other factors that might limit the field size, all of which had sounded reasonable. But it turned out the LAPT Bahamas event was positioned perfectly for many players arriving a little early this year.

Also had a chance to talk with last year’s PCA Main Event champion yesterday, the young Polish player Dominik Panka. Very friendly, well-spoken guy.

We went late last night, and thanks to the super-sized LAPT field today is guaranteed to be a long one, too, as they’ll try to whittle the 183 survivors down to something manageable before tomorrow.

Check back over at the PokerStars blog today for reports on the LAPT Bahamas event, the finish of the Super High Roller, and the start of the PCA Main Event, and also follow the live reporting at PokerNews for hands, counts, and more. Among other things it should be interesting to see if this LAPT Bahamas surge carries over into the Main.

Travel Report: 2015 PCA, Day 1 -- Down-and-Up, Down-and-Up

Was a fun first day yesterday helping report on the $100,000 Super High Roller here at the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. As expected, the tournament attracted a big turnout -- 61 entries, with 48 unique players. Late registration extends to the start of today’s Day 2, which could possibly add more to the field and prize pool.

While there were some intriguing hands, by far the most interest was derived by the constant games of “What Lodden Thinks” and prop bets, including a couple involving Mike “Timex” McDonald that saw him perform some impressive physical feats.

The first was a $10K bet with Bill Perkins requiring McDonald to perform 300 air-squats during a single one-hour level. That turned out to be relatively simple for McDonald -- in fact, he did 320 with more than 20 minutes to spare. Click here to read my report on how that bet developed and the result.

Later in the day McDonald was given a more strenuous challenge by Perkins to do 350 push-ups in an hour. If McDonald accomplished the feat, he’d win $10K more from Perkins plus another $10K to go to a charity chosen by Timex, and if he lost, he and Perkins would be square with the businessmen winning back his money.

It was quite a scene watching McDonald, ably described by my PokerStars blogging colleague Stephen Bartley. He ultimately came up just shy, doing 323, though earned a lot of respect from all nonetheless. (That pic above was taken during the attempt.)

It was down-and-up, down-and-up for Timex all day beside the table, but strictly up-up-up when he was seated as he managed to win a lot of chips during the day to end in second position. Players were commenting on how he couldn’t play as many hands and also had to act more quickly than usual when he did -- there were no “McDonald stares” -- and so it was interesting to see him accumulating regardless.

Also managed a post yesterday highlighting Donovan’s classic “Atlantis,” a tune that’s basically been stuck in my head ever since I arrived here at the Nassau resort. That’s one of those songs many people have heard yet don’t know the title, instead being more familiar with the much-repeated chorus from which I borrowed my headline: “Way down below the ocean, where I wanna be, she may be.”

Here... you can sing along:

Gonna move over to cover the first ever LAPT Bahamas Main Event today, about which I talked with LAPT President David Carrion yesterday. A lot of excitement surrounding this $3K event, and I’m very curious to see who plays and what the turnout ends up being.

Again, head over the PokerStars blog today for reports on both the LAPT Bahamas event and the Super High Roller, and also follow the live reporting at PokerNews for SHR hands, chip counts, and more. Looking forward to another long day of sitting down, getting up, sitting down, getting up....

Travel Report: 2015 PCA, Arrival -- Slipping and Sliding

My first full day here in the Bahamas was suitably restful with a couple of enjoyable meals bookending an afternoon of water sliding as we took advantage of the time available before the poker cranks up in earnest today.

After a quiet morning in the room tending to various tasks, I met up with my PokerStars blog colleagues Stephen, Howard, and Adam for a burger and root beer float at the Johnny Rockets. Then Adam parted from the group for the afternoon, leaving the three of us to tour the water slides for the next several hours as I took advantage of Stephen and Howard’s considerable prior experience with them.

Had thought initially I’d confine myself to the Lazy River, the super slow, “toddler friendly” slide better suited for those more interested in seeking sun than fun. But thankfully my guides directed me to the more adventurous options.

We rode the Serpent which includes a slow section carrying you through an enclosed tube surrounded by sharks, and also the Surge which like the Serpent features a stretch of complete darkness as you whipped around the curves. If you're curious, those are the first two slides in this video someone took with a GoPro.

We didn't try the Abyss (the third in the video), but Howard and I did go on the Challenger -- a five-second ride in which you race down against one another (Howard won). We also did the Leap of Faith (the fifth ride in that same video).

Otherwise we took a few tours around the River Rapids, which I think stretches about a mile as it winds all around that side of the island near Cove Beach. A fun mix of fast and slow sections in that one, and in fact each of us managed to get completely dumped from our respective tubes once during the day.

There were lots of families enjoying themselves all around us, and I kept thinking how much Vera would have liked it. Also thought of my nephew who turns six next month and how much fun he could have there as well. Spotted a few poker players and media, too, amid our adventuring, here early enjoying the amenities.

I cannot remember the last time I’d been down a water slide. Might well have been way back as a preteen, for all I know. Pretty easy thing to pick back up again, and it was definitely a blast getting a chance just to relax and let the water carry us where it would.

For dinner we all reconvened along with Brad and Joe for a cab ride over to the Poop Deck, a favorite seafood place of the PCA vets, and the Grilled Fisherman’s Platter I had did not disappoint. Just west of Nassau on the northern coast of the island, we had a spectacular view out onto the water tracking the upward progress of the big round moon shining down as it rose from the horizon for its nightly trek.

Having a morning coffee now and readying to ease into things with today’s $100,000 Super High Roller. Looking at a preliminary list of entrants, many of the usual suspects appear set to participate, including a few new ones like the WCOOP Main Event winner Fedor “CrownUpGuy” Holz.

This is the fifth year of the $100K tournament at the PCA, and it looks like it could attract a largest-ever field for the event. There were 46 entries last year (when Fabian Quoss won), 43 in 2013 (when Scott Seiver won), 30 in 2012 (when Viktor Blom won), and 38 in 2011 (when Eugene Katchalov won the first PCA SHR).

Check over at the PokerStars blog today for reports from this first 2015 PCA event, and additionally follow the live reporting at PokerNews for hands, chip counts, and the usual. I’ll also today be looking ahead to start of tomorrow’s LAPT Bahamas Main Event event, a three-day tournament with a $3,000 buy-in and unlimited reentries. In other words, after today it’ll be a lot more slipping and sliding around from event to event as the 2015 PCA starts to unfold.