Travel Report: LAPT9 Uruguay, Departure -- One Last Hand

I’ve noted here before how very often these tournament reporting trips don’t leave a heck of a lot of time and/or mental energy for much beyond actually reporting on the tournaments.

With each of the places I’ve gotten a chance to go to over the years, I’ve been successful in getting at least some time away to experience the locations a little and do some genuine sightseeing at least -- on some occasions more than others. The trip to Dublin earlier this year, for example, was one where thanks to a little help from my friends I got out multiple times and felt like I’d gained a lot of from the experience.

The players who travel to these things face the same challenge to get out of the poker room and/or casino and see these places they’re visiting. It’s hard to do for a variety of reasons, but definitely worthwhile.

During this trip to Punta del Este I was kept busy with the tournament as usual, but as it happened I had a lot else to take care of on the side, which meant I pretty much didn’t get outside for the duration. But we ended early Tuesday night, and with the shuttle back to Montevideo not leaving until late afternoon on Wednesday, that gave my partner Will and I a chance to put in a few miles walking about and enjoying a nice, cool, clear day filled with a lot of great views.

Punte del Este is way down on the southern tip of Uruguay, a small peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic. We stayed in the Conrad located on the west side of the peninsula, the one referred to as the “Mansa” side which means “tame” (as I was talking about a couple of days ago). A short walk across the peninsula to the other side takes you to the “Brava” side, meaning “fierce.”

Indeed, we had a great view of the ocean from the hotel, and as I was describing before it really was more like a bay than an ocean, the waters being mostly still. Meanwhile on the other side was a real beach with rough waves crashing on the sand and rocks.

We walked across the peninsula earlier today, stopping of course to take several pictures of the highlight of Brava Beach, the great sculpture called La Mano de Punta del Este created in the early 1980s by the Chilean artist Mario Irarrázabal -- a.k.a., “The Hand.”

I’ve written about this sculpture here before on an earlier trip. Irarrázabal very deliberately chose the “Brava” side for it, as part of its symbolism has to do with warning swimmers with the image looking like a last wave before drowning. (Recalls a certain Stevie Smith poem, that.) Such a warning is apt given the rough waves on that side, and would be much less so over on the calm Mansa side.

My last trips to Uruguay were in 2011 and 2012, and it was during the first year I visited “The Hand” with Brad Willis, though at dusk when the picture-taking conditions weren’t ideal. This time Will and I got there just after noon and took turns snapping shots of each other standing around the unique work. (I say unique, but I believe Irarrázabal would later create similar versions of it in Spain and a couple of other places.) Click that pic above to see a bigger version of it.

From there Will and I walked down the Brava side to the marina and enjoyed a delicious outdoor lunch at the water-facing Restaurant Artico before circling back for our ride. All in all a nice, relaxing way to round out the trip.

It was great just to slow down and look around, even if only for a few hours before waving goodbye.

Long night of travel ahead. More from back on the farm.

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.

Travel Report: LAPT9 Uruguay, Arrival -- Hemispheres

Hello from Uruguay!

My flights down to Montevideo were fine. No movies for the super long one from Miami, I’m afraid. Just the words “Fasten Seat Belt While Seated” stitched on the back of the seat in front of me to look at the whole nine-plus hours we were on there.

My neighbor removing his shoes (and -- horror -- not wearing socks) before we even backed out of the gate didn’t necessarily help improve the situation much. But all in all, it could have been worse.

Actually shared that flight down with my blogging partner for the week, Will, so the two of us had fun catching up during the long shuttle to Punta del Este. Had to wait a little while before rooms opened up, but it wasn’t too bad. By the time of unpacking I was around 20 hours or so removed from having loaded up my suitcase back on the farm.

Always marvel a little at how it is possible to traverse the globe this way, traveling from the middle of the northern hemisphere down deep into the southern hemisphere -- like 5,200 miles, as I was calculating yesterday -- in less than a day. Probably challenges these two cerebral hemispheres knockin’ around in my noggin more than it should.

Then later we met up with Sergio for what turned out to be a delicious dinner at Las Brisas, one of the restaurants in the Conrad Hotel & Casino (shown above) which will be our home away from home for the next several days.

Capped the day off with some NFL football at the large, comfortable hotel lobby bar, and with the Patriots’ win over Houston I managed to nudge into an early lead in the Pigskin Pick’em pool, making for a nice conclusion to the long day.

On the drive in and during the short bit of walking around I did today, I found it hard even to remember having been here before. It has been three years and I’m staying in a different part of the city, so that’s part of the reason. Also the Conrad is a big contrast (a good one) from the earlier digs, and so the whole feel has changed in part because of that, too.

Gonna hit the hay now and try to recuperate a few of those lost hours of sleep from the flight before the tournament gets going tomorrow.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti / PokerStars 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 3 -- Playing Sgt. Pepper

The penultimate day of the Latin American Poker Tour Panama Main Event was a quick one, with the players getting from 32 down to eight by early evening, permitting us to get away early enough to enjoy a leisurely dinner at the Sortis Hotel, Spa & Casino.

Sergio, Will, and I went back over to the Score Sports Bar for our meal, which was leisurely indeed with another lengthy wait for the dishes. During that interim I pulled out my Beatles deck of cards -- a recent gift from Vera -- and dealt a few hands of a game I’m inventing called “Sgt. Pepper.”

It’s a Badugi variant and is still in beta, although I’ll tell you instead of needing four different suits in your hand to make a Badugi, all that’s required is to have a single, lonely heart among the four cards -- the other three can be anything else -- to make what I’m calling a “Fab Four.”

One rule Sergio introduced which I like is that if two players happen to hold the same hand, the one with the lowest heart wins.

Meanwhile, when a player stands pat, that’s choosing to “Let it Be.” I want to introduce another twist allowing a player to swap hands with an opponent, a move announced with the phrase “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” although I’m not sure as yet when and under what circumstances that will be allowed.

I’m not too eager to introduce lots of wild cards into the came, although perhaps it might be worth my getting some advantage “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Perhaps there could be variants of Sgt. Pepper -- “Eight Days a Week” (in which eights are wild) or “Revolution 9” (where nines are) or “Sun King” (making kings the best card to have, not the worst).

Having a three-card hand and drawing to a Fab Four is called “Fixing a Hole.” A “Cry Baby Cry”-ing call after the third draw that turns out to be a loser is referred to as “I Should Have Known Better” (or, if it’s a particularly bad call, “I’m a Loser”). And when someone folds to your bet rather than calling, that’s a “You Won’t See Me.”

Like I say, the game is still being developed, so I welcome any ideas. I’d like to say in the end I was able to invent Sgt. Pepper with a little help from my friends.

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.

Travel Report: LAPT9 Panama, Day 1b -- Do What You Do

The second Day 1 flight of the Latin American Poker Tour Panama Main Event went smoothly yesterday. Having fun with Will O’Connor, my blogging partner-in-crime at this one.

I was joking with him about my idea that “once I get out of blogging, I’m going to start coaching blogging,” something that Remko Rinkema and were laughing about back in Monaco recently.

I shared with Will my tweet to Remko approximating coach-speak for bloggers:

“Get out there… blog. Blog! Do what you do. Keep countin’! And stay cool even when it heats up!”

(There’s a relevant image illustrating the tweet and explaining that last line, if you click through to see it.)

After enduring a much-too-long wait for lunch at the sports bar early in the afternoon, Will and I managed to run well at the dinner break and get a quick, good meal at Fenecia. He had the risotto (which he reviews highly) while I had sushi (the spider roll), also good.

Forgot to mention yesterday how a friendly player from Argentina, Arthur “Cacho” Korn, came up to say hello and let me know he was a Hard-Boiled Poker reader. Neat to find that out, and fun as always to think about how small a world it really is.

Yesterday’s turnout ended up bringing the total field up to 553 entries, which I think is probably a good number all things considered. The Spring Championship of Online Poker is a focus for many players right now -- in fact some of those playing in this event are focused on SCOOPs as well (as shown above). There’s also the WSOP right on the horizon, for which many players are resting up.

In fact, of all the places the LAPT goes, Panama is the longest trip for the South American players, and so that’s always going to affect how many can come. More Central Americans can get to it, though, and a few more U.S. players, too, than usually make it down to Chile or Uruguay or Brazil.

Cutting it short to get back downstairs to Day 2. Check the PokerStars blog for more evidence of us doing what we do.

Photo: courtesy Carlos MontiPokerStars blog.