Latest Day 1 Post

Eric Brenes has been eliminated and his son Eric Jr. departed shortly thereafter, leaving us with three Breneses among the 143 remaining players. It was only a matter of time before two of them ended up at the same table. Sure enough, Roberto Brenes ended up moving to the two...more

Earlier today, we were remarking on how nice it would be to be Icelander Daniel Mar Palsson. That guy came down here from Iceland and spent the first few levels quintupling his stack. Since then, the ice has melted a bit and he's back down below 100,000. And so we...more

Alex Gomes spent much of the afternoon with a frown on his face. Though his chip count never reached the critical level, Gomes is a man who loves playing an aggressive style with a deep stack. So when he found his first double-up, taking him north of 50,000 in chips,...more

The LAPT fields are still what we like to call "manageable." With 259 players in the field, it's easy to see a lot of familiar faces. What makes them all the more familiar is the fact we have seen a number of today's players on the final table of other...more

With the early exits of Maria Stern and former Costa Rican first lady Doris Yankelwitz, five women remain among the 171 players still in contention for the LAPT Playa Conchal title. Two of those five are South American-based Team PokerStars Pros and one is 3,000 miles from home, exchanging the...more

At this moment in Iceland, the temperature is coming in at a balmy 6° Celsius (42.8º F). Meanwhile, here on Costa Rica's Gold Coast, we're shivering through a 30° day. For those of you who read a thermometer like me, that's 86º. We literally broke a sweat on our five-minute...more

The board read J♥2♠8♦9♣4♣ on the river, more than 10,000 already in the pot. The young man in the big blind confidently led into Humberto Brenes for 11,000, only to watch the Godfather of Costa Rican poker remove the plastic shark from the top of his stack and ship it...more

Victor Ramdin looks different. When he's sitting behind a table, it's sort of difficult to tell what's making the difference. And if I hadn't ridden in from the airport with him, I might still be wondering what's making him so happy. Fortunately, we had 45 minutes to chat during the...more

From a distance, it appeared that Maria Stern had tripled up early, a stack of dark-colored checks beneath her four orange 1,000-denomination chips. Alas, it was only a trick of the light, the stack in question actually comprised of black 100-denomination chips rather than the navy 5,000s, Stern's stack down...more

Within the first 71 minutes of the tournament, Alex Brenes experienced quite the roller-coaster ride when it comes to his chip count. Starting with the standard 20,000 in chips, Alex's stack dipped to 5,200 within the first five minutes of play. Then he snatched up a huge pot, taking his...more

Hank Sitton waved his hand around the well-appointed resort. "This is my old stomping grounds," he said, the memory obviously still clear in his mind. "I used to be a surfer. Sitton, known as "Hardway Hank" on PokerStars, is a serial qualifier for PokerStars events. We've seen him just about...more

They called "Shuffle up and deal" at the stroke of noon, with many Team Pros, qualifiers, and local players still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes and shaking off the effects of last night's welcome party. The registration line winds out the door of the convention center of...more

When the sky above Playa Conchal exploded, we knew the LAPT's third season was underway. We stood above the water of a small lagoon and underneath a blanket of red light and the steady buzz of Costa Rican Imperial. Men with the name Brenes surrounded us. It was like a...more

Thousands of feet above the dark green canopy that makes up most of Costa Rica, it's impossible to get a sense for the place. It looks fake, like something Universal Studios might create for an American tourist or a film producer might doctor to make his movie look like paradise....more