LAPT8 Peru, Day 3: Well, That Escalated Quickly

We are about a half-hour away from the final table getting started here at the Latin American Poker Tour Peru Main Event. That to the left is a look at the scene at present -- quiet now, though sure to enliven shortly.

Day 3 was kind of a weird one yesterday, as they managed to hustle down from 32 players to eight in just four-and-a-half hours -- in truth just about four hours’ worth of play.

It wasn’t as though the stacks were especially short. The calls of “all in” just kept happening over and over, seemingly every time we’d looked down from the last one. Was kind of interesting as well to see the top four players in the counts with 32 left all fall shy of making the eight-handed final table.

The day’s final hand kind of stood as a ready emblem of the whole day, actually. They’d just redrawn for the nine-handed table, the “unofficial” final table which would play on until one more fell. The stacks were plenty deep, thanks in part to the rapid pace, and we were settling in for what often at the LAPTs becomes a lengthy final table bubble, sometimes lasting a couple of hours or more as they try to get from nine to eight.

But after just a couple of hands one arose in which Carlos Moya defended his big blind with a call after fellow Chilean Patricio Rojas -- winner of this same event two years ago -- had made an early-position raise. The flop came 8-6-4, and suddenly all of the chips were in the middle, with Rojas showing pocket kings and Moya a flopped straight with 7-5.

Two cards later Rojas was out, and as I say the cracking of those kings seemed appropriate on a day when those who had begun the day with the biggest stacks had all been toppled.

Another strange bit of trivia coming out of yesterday -- the final table will feature exactly zero Peruvians, which we believe is the first time ever on the LAPT that a final table doesn’t feature a player from the host country.

The early finish gave Reinaldo, Sergio, and myself a chance for a leisurely dinner, then I managed to get a nice, full night’s sleep. Always seems to go the same way on these trips, sleep-wise, insofar as I start out getting practically none, then by the time I’m about to leave I’m finally getting close to a regular schedule of rest.

Head over to the PokerStars blog today to follow the action as they play down to a winner, where we’ve already gotten profiles of the final eight up there, if you’re curious.

Travel Report: LAPT6 Peru, Day 4 -- The Final Fifth Street, then Pizza Street

The fourth and final day of the Season 6 Latin American Poker Tour Peru Main Event -- the fifth one, in truth, because of the two Day 1 flights -- was the shortest of them all, clocking in at less than five hours. It wasn’t such a surprise, as the stacks were already starting to get shallow soon after play began, and sure enough the day was punctuated by one all-in after another as the final eight played down to a winner, Patricio Rojas of Chile.

On his bio sheet, Rojas had described himself as more of an online player -- indeed, like many he’d qualified for the event on PokerStars -- and in fact also noted that this was both his first LAPT event and first live tourney final table. He had the chip lead going in, lost it a couple of times along the way though always had a big stack, and by the time they’d gotten down to three-handed he had the majority of chips and eventually was able to withstand the others’ all-ins to win.

The runner-up, Rafael Pardo of Colombia, had made his fourth LAPT final table. He finished seventh twice (including at the very first LAPT event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2008), and third once earlier this year (again in Brazil, at Sao Paulo). That’s one behind the record of five LAPT final tables of Jose “Nacho” Barbero.

Pardo was way behind Rojas chip-wise to start heads up play and through a couple of dozen hands he couldn’t narrow the gap. Then came one in which both were dealt aces but Rojas had the better kicker, and when the final fifth street of the tourney fell the title was his. Not nearly as mind-boggling a finish as they had at APPT Queenstown this week (as I mentioned yesterday), but exciting nonetheless.

One interesting development yesterday saw the final seven players decide to flatten out the payouts considerably (which were quite steep). Here’s a post explaining what they did, which more or less amounted to taking a big chunk off the top and spreading it out among the other six spots.

Play ended late afternoon and after another couple of hours of tying up loose ends then a little longer to wait out the end of the High Roller event, a group of us were able to go back out into the Lima evening with its ever-present mist and find another good dinner.

We went to the famed Calle de las Pizzas or “Pizza Street” in downtown Miraflores which features a collection of restaurants -- many featuring gourmet pizzas -- with bars, music, and dancing. Was fun just walking up and down the street with Reinaldo, Maria, and Mario to look in on the various scenes while also being petitioned aggressively by those stationed outside each establishment wanting us to choose them. We finally settled on a place called La Glorietta, and Reinaldo and I split a pie with a host of toppings including asparagus and pineapple.

Was kind of funny to think I’d followed up my night of eating a hamburger with pizza while in Peru, but having been a few times now it was interesting to see a different part of Miraflores.

The dinner was lots of fun, and the pizza quite good as we ate while shooing away the men trying to sell us roses or play a song on the guitar. We also laughed a lot Mario told us a kind of incredible story about his trip to Wimbledon a few weeks ago. (Might be sharing more of that one later on... stay tuned.)

We ended up back at the Atlantic City Casino for some ice cream and more relaxing, then I cabbed it back to the hotel to get to sleep by midnight as I had to leave at 6:30 a.m. for the airport.

Am now all of the way back home after another long day of traveling -- hence the late posting -- and am going to sign off here for now and see if I can’t tame all of these still racing thoughts about the tourney and trip and get some sleep. Was another great experience, and I’m so grateful not only to have these opportunities but also to get to work with so many great, interesting people on the LAPT who couldn’t be more helpful.

If you’re curious you can check the PokerStars blog to see all of the posts from the five days of the tourney. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to you all mañana.