The Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), sponsored by PokerStars, debuted in 2008 with three $2,500 + $200 events spanning three different countries. The second event of that inaugural season, the San Jose, Costa Rica stop, attracted a field of 398 players, creating a prize pool of close to $1 million. Through the next three seasons, that tournament proved to be the largest on the short history of the LAPT, with only last June’s Lima event (384 players), truly coming close to matching it.
Would the LAPT ever break through the 400-player ceiling? The answer by those in Brazil last week was a resounding “Yes!” LAPT Brazil, held at the Sheraton Sao Paulo WTC Hotel, hit that mark easily. By the time registration was closed, an amazing 536 players paid the R$4,600 + R$400 (USD $2,760 + $240) to play, eclipsing the LAPT record by 35%.
With a R$615,840 (USD $369,504) first prize up for grabs, eight players, including five from the host country, commenced final table play on Sunday afternoon. It was a herky-jerky start, as power outages kept things from really getting going for the first two hours.
Five of the eight players at the final table were bunched fairly closely to start the day, with stacks between one million and two million chips. There were two distinct short stacks – Santiago Nadal with 555,000 and Henrique Bernardes with 440,000 – while one player, Leandro Csome, had by far the largest tally with 2,875,000.
Bruno Politano, the third shortest stack with just over one million chips, was the first to hit the rail on the final day. He doubled up Nadal early, but followed it up with an exciting double up of his own when he spiked his card on the river. Shortly thereafter, though, he was all-in with pocket tens against Alex Manzano, who turned his A-K into two pair to knock out Politano.
Then, Joao “joao bauer” Neto, one of the mid-stacks, moved all-in pre-flop after some raising and re-raising with just J-10 and was called by Csome, who showed A-Q. Neto nailed a jack on the turn to double up to 3.3 million and became a massive chip leader.
Bernardes, the original short stack, was the next player eliminated, as his Q-J couldn’t get lucky against Manzano’s A-K.
Csome then recovered slightly, finding K-K when Nadal moved all-in for his last few chips with A-J. Nadal was knocked out in sixth place and won R$93,270 (USD $55,962).
Csome, the chip leader entering the day, couldn’t fully regain the momentum, as his Q-7 got dominated by Manzano’s A-7 to leave him on the short stack. His agonizing day finally came to an end when his K-5 fell to Neto’s pocket nines.
Neto turned that pair upside down for his next knockout, using 6-6 to take care of Marcio “Kamikase” Motta and his A-10. Fourth place earned Motta R$165,000 (USD $99,000).
At that point, Neto was simply cruising. With seven million chips, he had a substantial lead going into three-handed play against Marcelo Fonseca (2.1 million) and Manzano (1.7 million). But before he could get too happy about it, Neto doubled up Manzano twice. Neto bounced back a bit, doubling up through Fonseca, and then it was Fonseca on the micro-stack, nursing just three big blinds.
Fonseca was all-in immediately after that double up and was called by both his opponents. In the end, Manzano knocked him out in third place to set up a heads-up match with Neto.
Manzano held almost a 2:1 chip lead going into heads-up play, with 6.8 million to Neto’s 3.9 million. And in just three hands, it was over. Manzano raised to 270,000 pre-flop and was called by Neto. When the flop came down 3-2-2, Neto checked, Manzano once again bet 270,000, and Neto called. After a seven on the turn, Neto checked-called once more, this time for 615,000. Another check-call took place once a four landed on the river, but this time, Neto was calling all-in and it took him five minutes to do so.
He must have thought Manzano was on a stone-cold bluff, as Neto called with just A-8 for ace-high. Manzano was far from bluffing, though, at least not on the river, as he showed 6-5 for a straight.
And with that, Manzano became the first LAPT champion to hail from the country of Chile, which is, coincidentally the next stop on the tour.
