Valdemar Kwaysser Wins LAPT Costa Rica

The Latin American Poker Tour crowned their second champion as Valdemar Kwaysser won the LAPT San Jose event, taking home $274,103 for the win. The Costa Rica stop was the second for the LAPT as last month the first event was held in Rio de Janeiro. A total of 398 players put up the $2,500 entry fee for the San Jose tournament, making for a prize pool of almost $1 million dollars.

Many top poker pros and celebrities were part of the field including local favorite Humberto Brenes, Daniel Negreanu, Victor Ramdin, Isabelle Mercier, Montel Williams and Orel Hershiser.

Kwaysser started the final table third in chips but had a lot of things go his way to move up the ladder. He was very lucky as many times he sucked out to win pots. An early suck out happened when his 8-4 took out Ashton Griffin’s A-8 when a 4 hit on the turn. Another one of the major wins was when he hit a runner-runner flush that eliminated Steve Silverman.

His pair of two’s was completely dominated by Silverman’s pair of fives but Kwaysser hit a flush with his 2 of spades to win. That was the second bad beat that Silverman suffered at the hands of Kwaysser. Silverman also had his kings cracked by the 10-5 of Kwaysser. When it got to heads-up play, Kwaysser was able to defeat Max Steinberg and on the final hand actually had aces.

Here are the final table payouts from the LAPT San Jose Tournament:

1st - Valdemar Kwaysser, Hungary, $274,103
2nd - Max Steinberg, USA, $144,773
3rd - Steven Silverman, USA, $106,167
4th - Alexander Soderlund, Sweden, $77,212
5th - Alec Torelli, USA, $57,909
6th - Pawel Sanojca, $38,606
7th - Ashton Griffin, USA, $28,955
8th - Joe Ebanks, USA, $19,303
9th - Steven Thompson, Costa Rica, $14,477

Kwaysser also won a seat at the LAPT in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August which is the third and final stop on the tour.