Travel Report: LAPT9 Uruguay, Day 1a -- Getting to the Meat of It

The first of two Day 1 flights is in the books here in Punta del Este at the LAPT9 Uruguay Main Event.

It was a standard noon-to-midnight day of reporting, with the prep and loose-end-tying adding up to a typical 13-hour day of work. We were able to work in meals along the way, including a dinner where along with Sergio, Reinaldo, and Will we made quads with our orders of steaks.

I tweeted out the picture above, captioning it “Meat and Greet” thanks to the four of us having all ordered the same entrees.

As far as the tournament is going, that word “entrees” always seems to threaten to rise up and make for a humorous typo whenever I’m aiming for the word “entries.” As in, there were a total of 176 entrees on Day 1a, which would make sense if catering some sort of huge get-together, but would be strangly surreal at a poker tournament.

Make that 176 entries, counting some folks buying in twice, a few three-timers, and at least one who fired four times. The tournament has a $1,500 buy-in -- half what it was last year -- which encourages the re-entering for many. Of that starting group, 59 made it through to Sunday's Day 2, with Fabian De La Fuente leading and his fellow Argentinian and two-time LAPT winner Mario Lopez with a big stack as well.

Should be a bit more than that tomorrow, when we’ll see how big this last LAPT Uruguay Main Event turns out to be. And after that get to the money (on Day 2) and the “meat of it” heading towards Tuesday’s final table. Head over to the PokerStars blog to see how it goes.

Looking Back Along the Long and Winding LAPT Road

Was just reading a nice post from my friend Sergio Prado for the Brazilian PokerStars blog in which he looks back at nine years of the Latin American Poker Tour.

I’ll admit I had to use Google translate, as my Portuguese is essentially limited to a single word. That said, I think I can make out what his title means well enough: “Minha homenagem ao LAPT.”

Sergio has been an important part of the LAPT for the entire way, ever since the first LAPT event took place back in May 2008 in Rio de Janeiro. As he recounts in his post, tournament director Mike Ward and Reinaldo Venegas (who like Sergio has blogged while also serving other roles with the tour) have both been there throughout as well. A number of others have been there for much of it, too, and Sergio does a nice job remembering them while sharing some nice photos along the way.

My first time visiting the LAPT was way back in June 2010 during Season 3 when I went with Brad Willis to Lima, Peru and we helped cover Jose “Nacho” Barbero’s second straight LAPT Main Event win. I believe that was my first time ever in South America, and the trip was followed by more visits to Peru, as well as to Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil, then also to Panama a couple of times and to the Bahamas where the LAPT likewise added an event.

Sergio’s post got me thinking again about the new branding by PokerStars of its tours and how the introduction of the new PokerStars Championships and PokerStars Festivals will mean the end of these regional tour designations like the EPT, the LAPT, the APPT, and so on. In some ways it’s just a change of name, but then again it signifies something more, given the way each of these tours developed its own history and character as shaped by the players and personalities involved.

I’m slated to go to Punta del Este next week where I’ll meet up with Sergio and along with others we will report on the LAPT9 Uruguay stop, which I’m only today realizing will be the very last regular LAPT series. There’s still the LAPT9 Grand Final to go in Brazil in November, although that will only involve a single main event, not an entire festival. I won’t be making that November trip, as I have other things happening, so the long voyage down to Uruguay will represent my last LAPT ride.

I imagine I’ll be having my own homenagem to share afterwards once that’s done, given how much I’ve valued the experience of covering those tournaments and most importantly getting to meet and work and laugh with the people Sergio lists in his post. To him and all them I gratefully deliver my only Portuguese word...

Obrigado!

Photo: courtesy Carlos MontiPokerStars blog.

Travel Report: LAPT9 Panama, Day 4 -- On the Big Stage

The last day of the Latin American Poker Tour Panama Main Event turned out to be a bit longer and more exciting than I’d anticipated.

The eight-handed final table started at noon and didn’t end until after 11 p.m., which means it went on considerably longer than normally happens in these LAPT finales. And there was some intrigue, too, thanks to how things played out.

There were three Americans at this final table, something I can’t remember happening at any LAPT I’ve ever been to, and I’m sure hasn’t happened since Black Friday. One, Alcides Gomez, was the short stack and busted early, but Austin Peck (who finished fourth) and Aaron Mermelstein (who took third) both appeared as though they had as good a chance as anyone to win.

Heads-up was kind of wild, too, with Ruben Suarez (from Venezuela) and Andres Carrillo (from Colombia) battling kind of fiercely despite having shallow stacks. At one point Carrillo folded to a big Suarez bluff when calling would have essentially given him the win, something that appeared might have rattled him a little with the loud rail of Venezuelans not helping matters for him.

But Carrillo managed to hang on and eventually win in the end, prompting another enthusiastic celebration among his supporters. You can read a recap of how it all played out on the PokerStars blog.

The set-up for reporting was kind of ideal, as we were situated up on a stage looking over the final table below, making it easy both to see all of the action and to remain out of the way. Of course, if you were just passing by it might have looked like we were the show, being up on stage as we were. There a shot up top -- done in b/w by the great Carlos Monti -- giving you an idea. You can see another photo of me illustrating my partner Will O’Connor’s post-tourney recap on his blog, too.

To the left is another photo Will took of me, Reinaldo, Sergio, and Carlos -- actually four of them taken with a camera Reinaldo had. Would be a good album cover for our band, I’d think. And it really does feel like a band sometimes, and it was great fun having Will playing along as well this time.

We’d talked about playing some poker after everything was done which would’ve been fun, but things ended too late and some of us had to get up early this morning, so we skipped it.

Day of travel ahead. Was another fun trip but after working two in a row like this I’m more than anxious to get back to the farm. Talk to you again from there.

Photo: courtesy Carlos MontiPokerStars blog.

Travel Report: LAPT9 Panama, Day 2 -- Wingin’ It

Day 2 of the Latin American Poker Tour Panama Main Event was a fast-paced one, with 172 players managing to work their way down to just 32 in a little over nine hours’ worth of poker. That’s something like 15 knockouts per hour or one every four minutes.

A Columbian player named Anderson Blanco bagged the chip lead at night’s end, but Aaron Mermelstein of Philadelphia is close behind him and appears well positioned perhaps to add an LAPT title to his collection. Mermelstein, you might recall, won a couple of World Poker Tour events last year, and he’s obviously one of the stronger ones left in the field.

Oscar Alache is there, too, though, hanging on with a short stack. He’s won two of these LAPTs which ties the record along with Nacho Barbero, Fabian Ortiz, and Mario Lopez, so he’d be setting a new standard if somehow he was able to push back up the leaderboard and win the sucker.

Will and I held up amid the madness well, and we’re enjoying working the event along with Sergio, Reinaldo, Carlos, and the others here at the LAPT.

I mentioned before how accommodating the Sortis Hotel, Spa & Casino has been. They’ve even been bringing around food and drinks for us throughout the day, which has been nice given how it isn’t always easy to break away for meals.

Yesterday chicken wings were among the offerings, and up above you can see me flexing my blogging muscles, reporting with one hand while feeding myself with the other.

Back at it today with the plan being to work down to the final eight. Check the PokerStars blog for all the action. I promise to try not to get the keyboard too greasy.

Five Years Later, Just Another Friday

Five years ago today I was in Lima, Peru helping cover the Latin American Poker Tour event there for the PokerStars blog. There we are to the left behind our laptops (the day before, I believe). It was my second trip to Lima, and the first and only time I’d partner up with my friend Dr. Pauly for such an adventure.

That fact alone might have helped make the trip stand out from the many others tourney journeys I’ve taken over the years. But something else happened that caused me to remember those days many times over the years since.

Was just another Friday. We all rolled into the Atlantic City casino late that morning, and had set up shop and were already reporting on Day 2 when the news reached us around 1 p.m. Lima time (if I remember correctly).

I don’t quite remember, actually, when the phrase “Black Friday” began to be used, although looking back through my travel reports here on the blog I can see the phrase already starting to appear in posts by Sunday. That means by the time Pauly, F-Train, Reinaldo, Carlos, and the rest of us left Peru it had already become the shorthand signifier for the end of online poker in U.S. as we knew it. And (so we thought then) the probable end of a lot of other things, too, including such trips to South America.

It turned out not to be quite as catastrophic as it seemed then, thankfully. Those reports from Lima share a kind of rapidly-told story arc reflecting the before, during, and after of the news hitting us and our efforts to absorb and understand it:

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Arrival

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Pregame

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 1

Thunderstruck: The Day It All Changed for Online Poker

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 2

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 3

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 4

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Departure

Another one written about three weeks after getting home is actually my favorite “Black Friday” post, the one describing the game of Big Deuce our group played our final night in Lima, a.k.a. the Last Game:

2011 LAPT Lima Postscript: Plotting in Peru

And for more looking back, earlier this week I wrote up a more clinical, less personal rundown of what poker life was like before April 15, 2011, the events of that day, and the long, frustrating aftermath in an article for PokerNews. If you haven’t seen it you might take a look as it likely will trigger some “oh-yeah-I-forgot-about-that”-type memories:

Black Friday: Reliving Poker’s Darkest Day Five Years Later

Now it all seems oddly unremarkable, as though (in hindsight) there was something inevitable or even predictable about what happened on April 15, 2011 and everything that followed. Of course the DOJ was going to unseal the indictments and civil complaint that day -- it was just a matter of time before they did. And certainly the targeted sites would then depart the U.S. in short order. And surely we could’ve (should’ve?) seen the funds-related troubles following, too. Right?

Even the long, dreary, battle-with-inertia marking individal states’ efforts to reintroduce online poker -- successful so far in only three, and with desperately modest results -- seems from today’s perspective to have been an inexorable consequence of it all. As do the still dim prospects for online poker in this country going forward (if we’re going to be realistic).

You’d think all of that might make it less easy to remember the shock of the day itself, with the dot-coms going offline, Twitter exploding and “#pokerpanic” becoming a favorite hashtag, Two Plus Two crippling and flatlining under the weight of traffic, and so on. But the surprise was so pure and fresh -- even if it shouldn’t have been -- the impression remains lasting, even today.

Five years plus a couple of leap days makes April 15th a Friday once again. The symmetry has an effect, and the time removed now enough to suggest some kind of finality. It’s a period of time once considered adequate to accommodate Soviet planning, or to help illustrate a David Bowie-imagined apocalypse. Like we’re now even more fully sealed off from what it was all like before.

As though finally, we’re all of the way back, and it’s just another Friday.

Photo: courtesy Carlos MontiPokerStars blog.

Season of the Witch

Sometimes in all-in situations, say, when there’s one last river card to come, players will entertain themselves by calling out specific cards a beat before the card is revealed. “Eight of diamonds!” will shout a player, enacting a kind of prognosticator’s freeroll that gets promptly ignored if wrong, but celebrated if somehow the guess proves correct.

That celebration is usually forgotten fairly quickly, too, as it should be. But it still can add up to a fun moment for those involved, the way it goofily suggests the gambler’s dream of extra-normal powers of perception.

Last week while in Brazil, I was chatting with Reinaldo on Wednesday about the upcoming NFL games. He and I are both in the same Pigskin Pick’em pool and while we’re both far out of the running overall, we’re neck-and-neck with each other, and so are having some fun going back and forth about which of us will end the season with more correct picks out of the 256 total NFL regular season games.

My Carolina Panthers played on Thanksgiving, and somewhat hilariously were an underdog to the Dallas Cowboys despite Carolina being 10-0 going into the game while Dallas was 3-7. The reason for the line, of course, was the fact that Dallas starting QB Tony Romo was back in the line-up, and so far during the year Dallas had lost exactly zero games when he’d played (three) and won exactly zero when he hadn’t (seven).

Laying on a little bit of fan-fueled hyperbole, I pretended to express outrage about the Panthers being somehow disrespected by such a line. But in truth I knew the Panthers outmatched Dallas, even with Romo. “The Panthers will roll tomorrow,” I told Reinaldo. “In fact, they’ll knock Romo out of the game.”

As I mentioned last week, we were able to keep tabs on the T-giving games while at the tournament, and so I greatly enjoyed watching Carolina fulfill my prediction as they jumped in front of Dallas, then continued to pull away as the third quarter neared its close. It was about that time I shot my buddy Rich Ryan a message.

“Saw this coming all the way from South America,” I boasted. “I’m just surprised they haven’t knocked Romo out of the game yet.”

Less than a minute after I hit send, Romo was sacked hard by Thomas Davis, reinjuring his collarbone and having to leave the game. Indeed, his season is over.

“Sick timing brah,” replied Rich before I could even fire back an “ahem” to punctuate the uncanny coincidence of the message.

Reinaldo was impressed as well, and after asking me what the male equivalent of a witch is, promptly called me a warlock. (That picture up above, by the way, is one of your humble scribbler from long ago, one Vera coincidentally found while I was gone.)

Even though I have no particular feelings about Dallas, I’ve always liked Romo. And even if I didn’t, I obviously was not glad to have seen him get hurt. Even so I’ll admit to having experienced the momentary, frivolous pleasure that comes with guessing correctly.

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.

LAPT8 Peru, Day 1b: Peruvian Perambulation

Gearing up here for another day of blogging from the Latin American Poker Tour Peru Main Event, where 129 players are returning, survivors from what ended up a 366-entry field who will be vying for pieces of the $807,396 prize pool.

Was a long one yesterday, but fairly smooth and mostly stress-free. I even managed to enjoy three full meals, which afterwards I realized was kind of a rarity on reporting days.

At one point during the early evening Reinaldo and I took a break to enjoy a long walk around downtown Miraflores where preparations are in full force for the big parade that will start at 3 p.m. today.

The parade is part of the Fiestas Patrias that includes a few different national holidays, including Peru’s independence day (July 28). For the entire month Peruvian flags are flying everywhere, outside every building and in every office window.

They’ve blocked off the park and set up bleachers, as I believe there will be more than 100,000 spectators watching the parade which will last several hours. That sign above points parade-goers to the port-a-pottys and where lost children can be found.

Ought to be quite a spectacle, and I plan to get out there to get a look once it kicks off. Otherwise I’ll be inside the Atlantic City casino reporting from Day 2 -- check over at the PokerStars blog to follow along.

2011 LAPT Lima Postscript: Plotting in Peru

I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post I had one last story from LAPT Lima I’d been wanting to share. Call it a delayed postscript to what turned out to be an especially memorable tourney trip.

I was thinking this morning about how Dr. Pauly might tell this one. By the way, that picture of the sunset, taken from our hotel, comes from the ones he took while we were in Lima.

Pauly would probably start out in documentary-like fashion, drawing us in with a few easily verifiable details. Then, at some point around the tale’s midpoint -- like a member of the group crossing a street just before the light changed, leaving his less adventurous mates on the corner -- he’d mischievously race over toward the line between fact and fiction, then merrily trip over it. From there he’d carry us all into a wild, Wonderland-like finale perhaps inspired by visions of Machu Picchu or other experiences he’d gathered during those extra days he remained in Peru.

But I’m no Pauly. No, you’ll more likely find me with the others, waiting on the corner for the “Walk” sign to light up. So I’ll tell it straight. (Mostly, anyway.)

The last day of the tournament was on a Sunday. After a final table lasting seven hours or so, a regular at the Atlantic City Casino -- one more apt to be found at the craps tables than in the poker room, we’d learned -- had won the sucker. A boisterous fellow, often smiling and cracking wise even before his victory, he’d apparently played the event on a whim, having been put in by someone else.

Among those at the final table, the runner-up from Panama had struck us as perhaps the most skilled player, yet the Peruvian didn’t appear to have a lot of difficulty taking care of him. Pauly, Reinaldo, and F-Train each had different takes on what had happened, their interpretations perhaps reflecting their personalities. To summarize each, Pauly was conspiratorial about it, Ray saw karma playing a role, while F-Train was more stoic in his assessment.

While the final day was a short one relatively speaking, having concluded by early evening, it had felt like an especially long week, made more so by its having been rudely divided by “Black Friday.” So once all the reporting loose ends had been fully tied, the four of us were more than ready to relax a bit before separately renewing our travels the next day.

We went down to the Larcomar mall and enjoyed a relaxing dinner outdoors, able to hear if not perfectly see the waves crashing along the coast as night descended. Evoking our friend and colleague Mickey -- who somehow manages to inspire tourney reporters from thousands of miles away -- I ordered a vanilla milkshake. Afterwards we went back to the Thunderbird Fiesta hotel. Soon a pack of cards was produced, and as midnight came and went we did what millions of people around the world like to do every day, often online.

We played poker.

Big Deuce was the game of choice. That picture -- the only one I took during the game -- shows a hand I’d drawn. After a half-dozen hands Ray had jumped out to a lead, though we losers’ spirits remained high, kept up by some hilariously profane trash-talking from Ray.

It was good to laugh. Hell, we needed to laugh. Given the uncertainty caused by Black Friday -- for online poker, for our prospects for future employment as poker scribes, etc. -- you couldn’t blame us too much for feeling a tad apocalyptic about everything.

I mean, Pauly and I had seen a dead body our first day in Lima. We’d visited ruins where sacrifices once occurred (and, apparently, more bodies were still to be found). Websites had vanished entirely, replaced by FBI and DOJ seals and stern statements about “seizures” and “warrants” and “violations” and such. “#pokerpanic” had become a much-used hashtag on Twitter.

So we dealt another round, each of us perhaps thinking privately that, well, maybe (in a way) this really was the Last Game.

Ray sneakily saved a deuce to take down yet another hand, and while I shuffled we chuckled some more as he again described in detail to us his greatness. Meanwhile, laptops and phones kept us connected to the world outside the hotel room. Soon we were further entertained by a tweet sent earlier in the night by the witty and literary-minded Absinthe. Who, coincidentally, wrote an especially good post a couple of days ago which like this story involves finding humor (and meaning) amid grim circumstances.

Wrote Absinthe, “I’d like to think that in an alternate universe, @ftrainpoker, @taopauly and @hardboiledpoker are down in Peru plotting a revolution.”

We didn’t really discuss the tweet directly, but I knew we all appreciated it. And perhaps were inspired by it a little, too, as soon Pauly suggested we begin sending out tweets ourselves, inventing a situation out of whole cloth to baffle and amuse our followers. As I recall, the good doctor didn’t say anything specifically about an “alternate universe” or a “revolution,” but I immediately imagined the scenario he was contemplating to represent both.

The suggestion from Pauly was for us all to start tweeting that Humberto Brenes (who had played and cashed in the tourney) had joined our game. Immediately we all began helping compose the imagined missive, as well as the several follow-up tweets and Twitpics F-Train, Reinaldo, and I might subsequently send to lend the whole story further legitimacy.

“Last night in Lima, playing Big Deuce with Humberto, @ftrainpoker, @hardboiledpoker, @nalgorras” Pauly would send.

Then, a short while later, I would write: “OMG! Did Humberto really just call @ftrainpoker Dumberto? I may never stop laughing.”

Then Reinaldo: “Humberto @ftrainpoker Dumberto!!!! jajajajjajjajjjajja”

Then F-Train: “FML. Playing Big Deuce with Humberto and he just called me Dumberto.”

The story continued from there, though not before several instances of Brenes delivering his line were performed by each of us. “I am Humberto,” he’d say with exaggerated deliberation, thumbs touching the chest. Then, slowly pointing forward with both fingers and looking up, “You... are Dumberto!”

From there the fiction continued forward to include a hungover breakfast followed by still further episodes, our merry band trekking across South America as though we were Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo hurtling across the Nevada desert.

The game finally wound down around 4 a.m., I think. I noticed some time later that Pauly really did send out a tweet about Brenes and Big Deuce. There were no follow-ups, though. The rest of us had stayed on the corner, waiting for the light to change.

So while we didn’t necessarily plot any revolutions, we did create a plot. And there was something utterly liberating about it all. After the drama-filled days that came before, we were more than ready to laugh and laugh and laugh. And at least to imagine an alternate universe in which no one could ever tell us we couldn’t play cards if we wanted to.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 4

Woke up this morning with another track from The Last Waltz playing in my weary noggin’. So many great ones on that soundtrack, many with possibly applicable lyrics or titles. But the one I was thinking of was the most obvious: “The Shape I’m In.”

Am fairly well worn-out at the moment. F-Train, Pauly, Reinaldo, and I stayed up into the early hours, so am once again am going on less than adequate sleep as I write here in my hotel room.

I’ll recover soon enough, though. Not in that bad of shape, all things considered.

First F-Train and I completed our epic, two-day-long Chinese poker match in which the wiry one withstood my many comeback attempts to win 52-46 (scoring 2-4). To be honest, it would’ve been a significant upset if I had beaten him, given how badly I mangled setting at least a couple of my hands along the way. Then came Big Deuce with Pauly and Reinaldo. As the night wore on and dawn approached, the tallying became increasingly less reliable, but I’m going to guess Ray managed to best us there.

Safe to say our decision to keep the games going as long as we did had a couple of causes. We weren’t all that anxious to say our farewells. To each other, of course. And to the whole tourney scene, too, I suppose, which even if we end up back on one of the tours again will probably never be quite the same. Nor are we looking forward to the various new stressors that are going to be associated with our newly affected careers. Or our perhaps starting different ones.

So, yea, deal another, we said. Just one more. And then we said it again.

Yesterday’s final table was entertaining, if not too remarkable. Had the lone remaining woman, Samar Hodali of Peru, managed to win, that might have helped make it more so. But after entering the final table in second, she finished fifth. The leader, Daniel Ospina of Colombia, actually bounced out in eighth, paving the way for Kemal Ferri (pictured above) to win the title for his native Peru.

There was a decent crowd on hand to cheer Ferri on, although not as big or boisterous as the one I saw at the LAPT Lima last June. During the awarding of the trophy, amid the music, lights, and noise, we were startled by a small cannon going off right beside our stage-side location, raining shiny rectangles of confetti all over. Was appropriately festive, though, punctuating a well-run event that many enjoyed.

Took Pauly and I some time to finish up the last of our posts and sign off, then the four of us went for dinner down at the Larcomar again before heading back for the card playing.

Today Pauly begins a journey to Machu Picchu where he’ll be seeking visions of his future. Meanwhile, I’ll be homeward bound. Probably won’t be sleeping on the plane. I never do.

No, l have my eyes wide open, seeking visions of my own.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Day 1

Long, long day hustling back and forth on the second floor of the Atlantic City Casino, helping cover the first day of the LAPT Lima Main Event. Began mid-morning with various setting-up-shop type preliminaries, and it wasn’t until 3 a.m. that the last of the tasks had been completed and we could put the “closed” sign up for the night.

All of which is to say, there ain’t a lot of time this morning for your humble gumshoe to sit back and meditate on the meaning of it all. So it goes. Much like playing in a poker tournament, you find yourself making decisions all day, constantly faced with puzzles to solve or situations to analyze. When it’s over, you might reflect on what it all meant, but there isn’t time for that as it’s happening. ’Cos there’s something else you gotta deal with. Like right now.

I will say that I’m especially fortunate to be working with Dr. Pauly, alongside F-Train (who is here for PokerNews), and Reinaldo (the PokerStars.la blogger). That picture above is of the four of us, taken by Carlos, our photographer from Argentina.

Between them, Otis helping us from afar from back in the States, and the always excellent LAPT staff, there’s a fantastic network of support here to help a jingle-brained sap get along. That they’re also a buncha cool, funny, smart cats helps a lot, too.

Total field yesterday was 350, and after 10 hours of play it had been trimmed to 116. Playing down to 24 today, then down to the final eight-handed table tomorrow.

Was a fairly typical first-day vibe yesterday, with mostly patient play early on, then many all-ins once the antes had begun to increase. And as was the case last June when I was here before, the atmosphere was mostly jovial with a lot of laughter and people appearing to enjoy themselves -- as I’ve noted before, a bit different than what you typically encounter at the WSOP.

Might have ourselves a somewhat shorter day today. Actually, after the 15-plus hour marathon of yesterday, it’ll just about have to be shorter. In any case, do check out the LAPT Lima posts over on the PokerStars blog to see what we’re up to. And see also Pauly’s Tao of Poker and Tao of Pauly for more scribblin’ on our Peruvian adventure.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Pregame

Great fun last night at the welcome party thrown by PokerStars to kick off LAPT Lima. While there was much food and drink to be sampled and lots of socializing to do as well with players and staff, the highlight was getting to learn a little more about Lima culture, circa 400 A.D.

No, we weren’t given lectures or made to watch educational films. Rather, the party took place at the Restaurant Huaca Pucllana, located amid some truly stunning adobe and clay pyramids built by the area’s inhabitants some 15 or so centuries ago. Part ceremonial, part functional, the structures were built by the clergy both to further their authority as well as part of an extensive canal system drawing on the nearby Rimac river.

The entire series of pyramids was apparently buried underneath hills until discovered relatively recently. Dr. Pauly, Reinaldo, Shirley, Sos, and I took a brief tour of the ruins, and our guide explained how excavation only began in 1981 and is still ongoing.

“Pucllana” or “pucllay” means “game,” actually, and so “Huaca Pucllana” means a place for games or rituals. Like I say, the place apparently had both a kind of symbolic value, with various ceremonies (including sacrifices) helping further the religious authority of the clergymen who had the pyramids built, and was functional, too, by drawing on hydrological resources from the river. Was a place of trade, too, so the Huaca Pucllana was kind of an administrative center, too.

Was an eerie scene, the quiet and dark contrasting with the lights, music, and voices emanating from the restaurant. We took our time, snapping pictures while marveling to each other about at the sheer magnitude of the structures.

The pyramids are closely surrounded by modern apartment buildings -- indeed, we were told a good portion of the Huaca Pucllana were destroyed by developers. Made for another weird bit of discontinuity to see those buildings rising up beyond the borders of the (now government-protected) site, although there was a strange peace to be had amid the old being foregrounded and the new held off at a distance.

Pauly took a short video of the scene. Take a look:



Got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour and finally got some much needed snooze time. Have a few things to take care of this morning as we prepare for Day 1 of the event. Sounds like they’re hoping for as many as 400 this time around. I imagine much of our focus early on will be upon the returning champ, Jose “Nacho” Barbero, who came here last June and won his second straight LAPT title. I saw some references to that achievement among those reports that the amazing Vanessa Selbst had won the NAPT Mohegan Sun event last night -- a back-to-back for her, too!

Head over to the PokerStars blog later today where Pauly (pictured at left) and I will be reporting on all of the action from Lima.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Lima, Arrival

Good afternoon, peoples. I have safely wound my way back to the bottom half of the globe, returning once again to Lima, Peru where I’ll be helping cover the Latin American Poker Tour Lima Main Event over the next four days for the PokerStars blog.

Was looking back a little today at the last time we were here, when Jose “Nacho” Barbero bested a field of 384 to win. While doing so I was reminded of a big hand that took place involving Barbero near the final table bubble when just 11 players remained.

The Argentinian had opened with a raise, was reraised by the American Chris Conrad, then four-bet shoved all-in. Conrad tanked, then called with , forcing a sheepish Barbero to reveal the hand with which he’d gotten so randy -- and with which he’d now had put his tourney life on the line -- !

Sound familiar? Sort of resembles a hand from earlier this week that got some attention from the NAPT Mohegan Sun (at which the final table is ongoing right now). You’ve heard about that one? In which Vanessa Selbst five-bet shoved with 8-4 against an opponent who called with pocket aces, then fortunately rivered a straight to win what I assume was a largish pot. Same hand as Barbero’s, although Selbst was the one putting the other player all in. (Her hand was also suited).

Like Selbst, luck was on Barbero’s side, too, as he spiked an eight on the river to double-up and then eventually go on to win the sucker, a back-to-back for Barbero as he had just won the previous LAPT event at Punta del Este, Uruguay. Interestingly, Selbst, too, is gunning for a back-to-back after her victory at the NAPT Mohegan Sun last year. (As I type, Selbst is still in with just three players left.)

Speaking of coincidences, the trip to the hotel this morning featured a somewhat grim one.

Last year we arrived in Lima shortly after news had broken that Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba, was suspected of killing another woman, Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramírez, here in Lima. He was caught over in Chile shortly after our arrival, and I believe is presently in a Lima prison. That murder took place on May 30th, the fifth-year anniversary of Holloway’s disappearance.

On the cab ride in from the airport this morning, Dr. Pauly and I discovered death had preceded our arrival once again. As we drove along the western coast we saw some police tape and a dozen or so law-enforcement types circling a scene over on the left-hand side on the road. Some poor soul had fallen the 300 feet or so to his death, and the cabbie (whom we guessed might have been by the scene more than once already) noted that in fact two people had fallen.

That picture above (which I took last June) shows how the steep cliffs run right up against the coastline. We aren’t that far from the ocean, but don’t worry... we have no plans to do any running around up there!

Spent the afternoon hanging out with the always cool Reinaldo (of PokerStarsblog.la) and Pauly at the sportsbook at the Atlantic City casino. The three of us put a few soles apiece on underdog Tottenham Hotspur, then watched ‘em fight gamely but ultimately lose 1-0 to Real Madrid. The afternoon wasn‘t a total loss, however, as Reinaldo and I both learned a lot from this helpful Spanish phrase book Pauly brought.

We stuck around the Atlantic City a little longer to reunite with several LAPT and PokerStars folks before heading back to our hotel to rest up a little. Indeed, I’m going on about 36 hours here without any real snoozin’ to speak of, so I think I might rest my peepers for a while before we head over to the welcoming party. More to come!