The
Latin American Poker Tour, currently being sponsored
by PokerStars, had their LAPT Mar del Plata event
start this week in Argentina with a $5,200 Main
Event. This prestigious poker tournament was capped
at 600 entrants, both internet pros and top live
tournament circuit players, with two separate
starting days. The LAPT Mar del Plata event is
held at the Casino Central, one of Argentina’s
most luxurious casino and resort destinations.
The
structure of the event was similar to most “Main
Event” tournaments, with each player starting
with $10,000 in tournament chips and blinds starting
at a modest $25-$50. Unlike the WSOP Main Event,
which starts with $20,000 stacks and sees levels
increase every two hours and, the LAPT main events
move up their blinds every hour. Although the
event was capped at 600 players, approximately
280 made the long trek from around the world to
Argentina to play in arguably the LAPT's most
prestigious event.
Day
1a took off on Thursday and featured 140 players
from every corner of the planet. Notable players
included Maria Mayrinck, Chris Moneymaker and
illustrious names such as Boris Becker and LAPT
Viña del Mar winner Fabián Ortiz.
Apparently, players did not arrive at the LAPT
to enjoy sitting down for very long as two tables
broke down out of the starting 14 set up during
the first hour alone. Becker was outlasted on
Day 1a by his wife Lilly Kerssenberg, who in turn
was busted while sitting at Moneymaker’s
table. Also eliminated on Day 1a were Mayrinck,
Moneymaker and Ortiz, who hoped to make a big
splash in this event but fell short.
Play
was suspended for Day 1a when the field was trimmed
down to 27 players. The big contrast of the dasy
was that 77-year-old Jaime Ateneloff of Uruguay
finished the day with the chip lead while 19-year-old
Jorge Landazuri De Los Rios sits a close 2nd in
chips. Of the 27 remaining players from Day 1a,
none are notable tournament circuit pros or members
of Team PokerStars Pro. The surviving Day 1a field
is a diverse one, with 15 players from the hosting
country of Argentina, while Mexico, Spain, Uruguay
and the Netherlands still have players alive.
The United States has a single player remaining
alive out of Day 1a in Ryan Smith, a PokerStars
Online qualifier who sits with 51,100 in chips,
good enough for 13th in the Day 1a remaining field.
Currently,
Day 1b is playing at the Casino Central and notables
including Humberto Brenes, Alex Brenes, Dennis
Phillips, Andre Akkari, Joseph Hachem and Team
Pokerstars pro and recent SCOOP event winner JC
Alvarado. The event isn’t without its cast
of characters as well, performing antics typically
reserved for the World Series of Poker’s
Main Event where players try to get noticed for
television coverage. Although there are no camera
crews televising the event, PokerStars.tv has
been filming small videos for self-broadcast.
Notable shameless self promoters include United
States player Zachary Hall who is wearing a ridiculous
rainbow-umbrella hat that has gained some attention
from media and cameras. Hall won entry into the
tournament as an online qualifier.
This
is the second year that the LAPT has gone through
Central and South America with PokerStars heavily
promoting the event in hopes of gaining a marketing
foothold in a part of the world where poker has
yet to be heavily adopted. With notable Latin
players such as JC Alvarado and Humberto Brenes
attending the tournament events, as well as international
poker superstars like Joseph Hachem and Chris
Moneymaker, it seems that PokerStars is getting
a leg up on the competition gaining market share
in the Latin American markets.
The
LAPT Mar del Plata held $550+$50 super satellites
the day before Day 1a began and other tournaments
during the LAPT’s visit include a $460+$60
No Limit Hold’em Turbo, a $1,020+$80 “Second
Chance” tournament as well as a $10,000
high roller event that begins on Saturday, April
18th.
The
tournament series has made its way through Costa
Rica, Mexico, Uruguay and now Argentina to wrap
up the second season of the tour. Although there
has been no announcement about a third season
it seems that the widespread coverage and enthusiasm
that the events are getting this year makes a
third season an almost surety.
Fabian
Ortiz is First Latin American LAPT Champion, by
Dan Cypra - 23rd January 2009 (Credit:
Poker News Daily)
There
was $141,426 on the line in the PokerStars Latin
American Poker Tour (LAPT) Viña del Mar
event, held in Chile. Players from 27 countries
around the world descended on the South American
casino and, in the end, Fabian Ortiz became the
first Latin American champion in LAPT history.
He hails from Chaco, which PokerStars describes
as a "rural province" in Argentina.
The
Main Event at Vina del Mar had a buy-in of $2,700
along with a second chance tournament that sported
a $1,100 price tag. It was the LAPT's first tournament
since the event in Mexico ended abruptly with
federal agents descending on the tournament area
late last year. The Viña del Mar event
saw 50 Chileans enter and the entire final table
consisted of players from across Latin and South
America.
LAPT
President Glenn Cademartori commented in a press
release distributed by PokerStars on Friday, "Fabian
Ortiz's win demonstrates the growth of poker as
a Latin American sport. This is our first event
where the majority of the field was made up of
Latin American players. We expect many more local
champions as this sport continues to grow in popularity
in the region."
Team
PokerStars Pro members Humberto Brenes, who hails
from Costa Rica, and Andre Akkari, who resides
in Brazil, made their way to Viña del Mar.
However, neither sponsored pro made the final
table, which in the end shook out as follows:
Next
up for the LAPT is a stop in Punta del Este, Uruguay
at the Mantra Resort Spa and Casino. The $3,700
Main Event kicks off on March 18th and a winner
will be crowned two days later. A second chance
tournament has a $1,100 buy-in. The feature tournament
is capped at 500 players and the second chance
can accomodate a maximum of 300. Mar de Plata
in Argentina will host the season-end event in
April. No official dates for the tournament have
been announced.
PokerStars
is fresh off holding the largest live poker tournament
ever held outside of the United States. The most
recent PokerStars Caribbean Adventure drew 1,347
players and awarded a first place prize of $3
million, which went to Poorya Nazari. The Canadian
defeated American Tony Gregg heads-up.
Profile
Latin
is an ancient Indo-European language that was
spoken in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire
and had de facto status as the international language
of mid and western Europe until the 17th century.
It is the base language for the languages spoken
in France, Italy and the Iberian peninsula and
through them to South America. The conquests of
Rome spread the language throughout the Mediterranean
and a large part of Europe. It existed in two
forms: Classical Latin, used in poetry and formal
prose, and Vulgar Latin, spoken by the people.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and
the rise of the Roman Catholic Church Latin became
the ecclesiastical language of the Roman Catholic
Church and the lingua franca of educated classes
in the West.
After
having lasted 2,200 years, Latin began a slow
decline around the 1600s. But Vulgar Latin was
preserved: it split into several regional dialects,
which by the 800s had become the ancestors of
today's Romance languages. English, though originating
as a Germanic language, derives 60% of its words
from Latin, largely by way of French, but partly
through direct borrowings made especially during
the 1600s in England.
Latin
lives on in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin spoken
in the Roman Catholic Church. Latin vocabulary
is also still used in science, academia, and law.
Classical Latin, the literary language of the
late Republic and early Empire, is still taught
in many primary, grammar, and secondary schools,
often combined with Greek in the study of Classics,
though its role has diminished since the early
20th century. The Latin alphabet, together with
its modern variants such as the English and French
alphabets, is the most widely used alphabet in
the world. (Credit:
Wikipedia).
