Travel Report: LAPT9 Uruguay, Day 2 -- Summit of the Americas

Was reading a little today and happened across a reference to Lyndon B. Johnson having come right here to Punta del Este, Uruguay back in 1967 for a summit meeting with around 20 different Latin American heads of state.

Other U.S. presidents have come to Uruguay, although the others all primarily stayed in Montevideo for their visits. Franklin D. Roosevelt came to meet with the Uruguayan president in 1936; Dwight D. Eisenhower did the same in 1960 near the end of his tenure. Both of the Bushes came to Montevideo, too, although after a little searching around it looks like George H.W. did stop by Punta del Este briefly as well (in late 1990). In fact, Reinaldo is telling me George H.W. Bush either once had a home in Punta del Este or maybe still does.

LBJ’s visit here in April 1967 was by far the most significant one by a U.S. president. It lasted for three days and was called the “Summit of the Americas,” and from it resulted a detailed declaration signed by all of the presidents who attended detailing intentions regarding economic integration, industrial development, multinational action for infrastructure projects, measures to improve international trade, improvements to education and “modernization” of all nations, and reduction of military expenditures.

Here’s an interesting article from 1994 from the Los Angeles Times looking back on that ’67 summit and contrasting it with an upcoming one in Miami involving President Bill Clinton and other Latin American heads of state. The point is made how back in the late 1960s some of those at the Punta del Este summit were dictators (unlike in ’94). And, of course, the Cold War was still raging, with Castro and communist Cuba representing a constant threat to the rest of Latin America (from the perspective of the U.S.).

At the summit Johnson was very insistent that absolutely everything said by anyone be taken down and transcripts made available to all -- an indicator of the historic nature of meeting. Sounds like LBJ got along with pretty much everyone, save the president of Ecuador who was a little too conspicuous with his criticism of the U.S. for the Texan’s tastes.

I might be tempted to draw some sort of an analogy between an international summit and a Latin American Poker Tour Main Event such as the one here in Punta del Este I’m helping cover. After all, players from 16 different countries are making up the 438-entry field, and they’re also doing a lot of “negotiating” you could say, as they try to get what they want from each other.

Of course, no one here can win unless everyone else loses, so it’s not like these negotiations are aimed at producing some sort of harmony going forward. And there’s not a single U.S. player in the field, so that also might make the comparison seem less persuasive.

All but a handful of the players are from the “Americas,” though. More than half of entries (237) were made by Argentinians, and in fact there are still 25 players from Argentina left among the 32 who made it to tomorrow’s Day 3, with one of them -- two-time champion Mario Lopez -- enjoying the overnight chip lead.

We’ll see how things go for him and everyone else tomorrow as Day 3 of this poker summit continues. Go to the PokerStars blog where we’re not necessarily taking down everything said and done by everyone, but enough of it to create an adequate historical record for future researchers.

Photo: “Meeting of American Chiefs of State,” LBJ Library photo archive (public domain).

Travel Report: LAPT9 Uruguay, Day 1b -- Going for Three

The second and last Day 1 flight for the $1,500 buy-in Latin American Poker Tour Uruguay Main Event was bigger -- no surprise there -- with the ultimate number being 438 entries, making a prize pool of $571,590 with $110,870 up top (barring a final table deal).

I mentioned how the event is a re-entry, and today it was Oscar Alache busting just prior to the dinner break (after which late registration concluded and the re-entry option ended), then he bought in again and in just four levels spun up a tournament leading stack heading into Sunday’s Day 2. Both he and Nacho Barbero made it through today on what was each player’s third entry in this sucker (both entered once on Day 1a, then twice on Day 1b).

Alache, of course, has won two LAPT titles before, as has Mario Lopez who’ll return to a top five stack and Barbero (who is sitting just outside the top 20 with 155 players left. Only Fabian Ortiz is missing from the two-time champs club, as he didn’t make the trip this time. No player has ever won three.

I suppose these references to all-time records during the nine seasons’ worth of LAPTs will be set aside starting next year, although we’ll probably find a way to keep bringing back what has become a fairly invovled history of events in the various LAPT stops.

And from what I’m gathering, they’ll probably be going to back to all of the current ones next year, mostly as “PokerStars Festivals” with the one in Panama being a “PokerStars Championship.” In other words, while the LAPT may technically be ending this year, the “tour” of Central and South American stops will continue as usual, only as part of the larger global tours.

It strikes me that the players who typically populate the fields in these events in places like Chile, Uruguay, Panama, and Brazil (and Peru, Argentina, and a few other places in the past) are all still likely going to come to the newly-branded series when they come around. (Truly, if you step back and take a look, when the LAPTs come around they fit into ongoing, year-round tournaments being offered at all of these stops, anyway.) And if the new “Championships” and “Festivals” work to draw a few more players from North America, Europe, and elsewhere, so much the better.

More mañana. Check that PokerStars blog to see if any of these two-timers really get close to making it tres.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti / PokerStars blog.

EPT12 Barcelona, Day 7: Getting It In Bad

It was a fairly exciting final table yesterday in the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event, won in the end by Mario Lopez of Argentina. It’s the second time I’ve covered Lopez winning a big one, after his LAPT Chile win back in the spring of 2014.

The most interesting hand I saw yesterday involved Lopez making a huge call versus the young Jose Carlos Garcia, the young Polish player I mentioned a day ago as being unafraid to put a lot of chips in the middle with or without a hand.

In this case Garcia again made a huge overbet, shoving the river on a raggy board containing a jack, a nine, a couple of fives, and a trey (and no flush). The bet (a third postflop barrel) was about four times the pot, I believe, and more than what Lopez had left, but after tanking for five-plus minutes Lopez found a call with Q-9.

Garcia’s hand? 7-4-offsuit. He’d go out a little later in fourth.

Interestingly, all of the bustouts -- aside from Garcia’s and the final hand in which Lopez’s A-Q held against Jonn Forst’s A-6 -- featured players running into hard luck left and right.

One with A-K ran into both pocket aces and pocket kings. Pocket tens lost to pocket deuces. A-8 fell to A-7. You can read the end-of-day recap for details.

Weird, too, was how after Jonn Forst busted Knut Nystedt in third, Forst had exactly 41.1 million chips versus Lopez’s 40.9 million. They’d just colored up again and so the smallest chip was 100,000, so that meant Forst had the smallest possible lead to start heads-up play. (They did an even chop, with Lopez then winning the extra cabbage set aside.)

Back at it today as the EPT Barcelona Main Event continues, the one-day €25K High Roller plays out, and a few other side events are in action. Check the PokerStars blog for the skinny.

EPT12 Barcelona, Day 6: On Repetition, Patterns, and Learning

I’ve been living in a hotel room here in Barcelona for over a week now, and have nearly a week to go. It’s very comfortable, there’s a nice view off the balcony, and the breakfast buffet is quite good. It’s located close to the casino as well, which for me on these trips is probably the most important quality-of-life factor as I don’t have too worry too much about carving out time to get to and from my workplace.

Every morning I sleepily stumble into the bathroom, slapping the wall on my way in where three different light switches are location. A couple of them control lights in the bathroom -- I can’t remember which ones.

My first move, generally, is to turn on the shower. There are two rotating knobs on either side of a long cylinder. One of them switches the water flow from the shower head located above to the hand held one on the side, while the other controls the water temperature. I can never remember which controls which, nor which direction of twisting gets me hot or cold. Trial and error gets me to where I want to be, though, and I ready to step inside.

That’s when I invariably realize the floor mat -- new, and neatly folded each day -- is for some reason sitting inside the shower and thus has become soaked through. This I’ve now done every single day, failing over and over to learn the routines and procedures of those who maintain the place in which I am living.

There are other examples of my stubbornly refusing to learn about my habitation, knowing that it is temporary even though two weeks in the same place should be long enough to start absorbing information to help prevent repeating the same mistakes or general awkwardness. But really, I’m helpless. If I counted up the light switches in this room, I’d probably get to 15 at least. I still couldn’t tell you what half of them do.

Of course, I’m spending more time away from the space than inside of it, my workdays having lasted around 13-14 hours each day so far. Looking at being able to carve that back once the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event concludes today and I move back over to other events happening as the festival plays out.

They went from 98 all of the way down to eight last night, with the young, aggressive Polish player Jose Carlos Garcia being the center of attention for much of the day. Garcia was actually born in Spain, though moved to Poland as a child. He’s easily one of the more exciting players to watch, thanks both to the fact that he gets involved so frequently and the relentless pressure he puts on opponents when he does.

Garcia mixes up his play, too, though, making it hard for players to pick up on patterns and respond accordingly. But some have been able to teach themselves how to play back at him, demonstrating a greater capacity to learn than I have each morning in my hotel room.

Garcia got caught a couple of times today making big river bluffs and getting called, in both instances having made big bets on the end that required players to call off entire stacks. Once it was the Austrian, Jonn Forst, making the big call with two pair, and as a result he has the chip lead to start today’s final table. The Argentinian Mario Lopez -- whose LAPT win in Chile I covered a year-and-a-half ago -- is also still in the mix.

Go to the PokerStars blog to read updates of today’s finale. But you knew to do that. I mean we’ve been at this for more than a week now, right?

(Photo up top from the Casa Amatller in Barcelona.)