LAPT San Jose - Latin American Poker Tour |
| Written by Jason Viscosi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 23 May 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Team Poker Host will do our best to blog live from the tournament with chip counts, individual standings, amount of alcoholic beverages drank and of course infamous bad beats. May 22nd 2008 10:15 am EST
Humberto Brenes was at the front door greeting players as they went in. He gave Magnus a big hug and wished us all "suerte" which is Spanish for good luck. The 5 of us were spread all around the room but the good thing was we didn’t have any of the more popular poker pros to start off with. I haven’t heard from the others about their day yet but can tell you about mine. My table was a cheerful bunch with many online qualifiers and one Stars Team player from London. After about a couple of hours I was rolling strong… had seen A A four times and believe or not they held up four times. I bluffed a few pots as well and got caught so after all my work I still had about what I started the tournament with which was $10K.
Two hands later, we found each other heads up again so I raised his blind with A K off. He began his English banter and then as expected went all in. This is what I wanted but at the same time, did I really want to risk the tournament so early? I read him for a while, put him on a pair of 10’s and figured my AK was good. I looked around the room one more time and caught Montel Williams and Isabelle Mercier watching from their table behind me. I gave her a wink, pushed my chips in and said “let’s play”. To my surprise he also showed AK except I had the A of clubs. As you can guess, running clubs doubled me up and sent him to ponder how I could make that call. Other notable hands included Larry Hinden another Stars player. I looked down at A 7 off and figured I’d raise to $2,000. Larry called and the flop came 3 J J. Not the flop I was hoping for and when Larry bet at me another $2,000, I put him on a pair and had to think about folding. Something about him though told me to see one more card... so I called. The turn showed another J and now my bluff has caught me in a possible full house trap. He checked it to me as anyone with a full house should do, so I thought about it for a while and figured if he wanted me to see one more card… I might as well take him up on that offer. I almost laughed out loud when the dealer turned over the last J for quads on the board. He checked once again and so did I since I felt like a donkey online player for hitting that hand but happily dragged in the nearly $7,000 pot. After having a nice stack of about $23,000 I was able to read the short stack play of Dave Hardy, another Stars player that was moved to my table. He went all in after seeing a flop of 6 3 2 for about $3,700. I was already in the blind and had A 6 off. I figured this was his last stand, I had top pair and an A so I called. He flipped over 4 4 and got no help so I now sit with about $30K. The last I heard the rest of Team Poker Host was holding their own except Henrik who was down to about $1,000 chips. Read about how Henrik came back up to almost $11,000 on his Team Poker Host LAPT blog en Espanol. ***** May 22nd 2008 9:20 am EST
Last night Team Poker Host was invited to the LAPT San Jose launch party and let’s just say that after a few bottles of wine, I lost Daniel Negreanu in Costa Rica. The night seemed simple enough as I met TV personality Montel Williams in the hotel lobby. It wasn't too hard to miss him... he was wearing the exact same outfit he wore in the 2007 WSOP! I figured it must be some kind of intimidation tactic... We then met up with some of Magnus's friends from Sweden who will also be playing in the LAPT San Jose. We had a few drinks at the bar, they made fun of me in Swedish and then it was off to the party. I must say that seeing half naked women as soon as you walk into an event is always a classy touch. When I first walked by one of the ladies, I thought it was weird to have half naked mannequins hiding in trees... that is until I "tuned in Tokyo" and realized these aren't mannequins. Oh yea... did I mention that it was my anniversary last night... 8 years... not sure if there will be a 9th. We found a table by the bar (emergency access) and then it was game on. First Humberto Brenes came over with his brother Alex who finished fourth in the LAPT Rio event to wish us good luck. Then Victor Ramdin came over and told me to just play my game. We’ve played before in other tournaments and it seems that he respects the skills so we chatted for a little while about poker until I heard the high pitched laugh of Danny. As soon as I told him to quiet down, I heard that same annoying laugh as he turned around and saw it was me. I’m not sure if he was surprised or disappointed to find out that I was playing in the LAPT San Jose event but once I put a bottle of Imperial in his hand… it didn’t matter. We talked like old classmates about tournaments, reads, tells and the naked woman. We went over to the jungle where the “ladies” were hiding and I used my Spanglish to introduce Danny to the ladies. I left him there to mingle, went to the bar, got a refill and spoke to Julien Nuijten for a little while about his win at the LAPT Rio event. An hour later… I went back to our spot and Magnus was gone… Henrik was gone… and Danny was gone. I’m not sure where everyone went but I am sure I lost Daniel Negreanu in the jungles of Costa Rica. ***** May 21st 2008 1:24 pm EST Oh boy... by the time we're done with the LAPT, some people might be going back to their day jobs. We found out today that a few TV and Sports personalities will be attending the Latin American Poker Tour tournament in San José, Costa Rica starting tomorrow (May 22). Talk show host and avid poker player Montel Williams and Major League Baseball legends Orel Hershiser and David Wells will be shuffling the chips alongside us. We have also heard that Sam Simon, the co-creator of the Simpsons will be in attendance. To be honest... with Mel Gibson and Britney Spears also in Costa Rica, it should be a "crazy" day. LAPT San Jose - Team Poker Host
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The LAPT asked us nicely not to attend...but we didn't listen. Now the Latin American Poker Tour will be invaded by Team Poker Host; our top 5 international poker professionals with their eyes set on one thing... the LAPT San Jose trophy. Among the more well known poker stars that Team Poker Host will have the pleasure of taking down in the LAPT San Jose $2,500 buy-in event will be Daniel Negreanu, Humberto Brenes, Victor Ramdin, Andre Akkari and Isabelle Mercier. 
