LAPT8 Peru: Fishing for a final table as 32 return for Day 3

We were talking about sharks over breakfast this morning. Wasn’t everyone?

Our intrepid photographer Carlos Monti, also a gifted fisherman, provided what seemed the most insightful commentary on the subject, including the sage observation that “nature does not need man, but man needs nature.”

Deep, that. Like the ocean.

Having had our fill of food for eating and food for thought, we’ve returned to the second floor of the Atlantic City casino in Lima where Day 3 of the Latin American Poker Tour Peru Main Event gets started shortly.

From a 366-entry field they are down to 32 players, and today those 32 will find a way to become eight. The majority of a big $807,396 prize pool remains in play, as does an attractive $156,576 sitting up top for the player who tomorrow finds a way to reel in all of the remaining fiches (chips, that is).

Andres “gmcrafter” Herrera rose to the top of the counts during a frenetic post-bubble period yesterday that saw them play from 55 to 32 in less than two levels. The online star was able to bait his opponents successfully enough to bag 535,000 at night’s end to begin today in first position.

Andres HerreraHerrera seeks his first LAPT title. Meanwhile the player nearest to him in chips at present will be angling for his second, Herrera’s fellow countryman Patrcio Rojas. The Chilean landed his first LAPT Main Event trophy in this same event two years ago during Season 6, and will be starting today with 493,500 after spinning up what had been a relatively short stack during the bubble period.

Patricio RojasAndres Dos Santos (478,000), Leiv Kare Johannessen (477,500), and Marcus Martinez (409,000) will be next in line, chip-wise, when the tournament sets sail today and players start to navigate those sometimes treacherous flops, turns, and rivers.

LAPT3 Argentina winner Martin Sansour of Peru returns to a big stack as well with 331,500. Meanwhile down toward the latter part of the leaderboard sits two-time LAPT champ Fabian Ortiz of Argentina. Ortiz today returns to a stack of 91,000 with continued hopes of becoming the first in the tour’s history to net a third win.

Fabian OrtizAnd sitting 32nd of 32 is the Scottish pro and EPT/UKIPT London champ David Vamplew with 47,500, a stack representing just under eight big blinds. As he told us about earlier in the tournament, this is Vamplew’s first time dipping his toes in LAPT waters (aside from LAPT Bahamas), and he’ll return determined to make it last a little longer if he can.

David VamplewPlay picks back up at 12 noon today in the middle of Level 18 and as noted will be continuing until a final table is determined. There’s about 7.26 million of those fiches out there, meaning even the leader Herrera has only caught a little over 7% of them.

Stick with us throughout the afternoon and evening to see which eight players prove the most shark-like today to continue their LAPT Peru expeditions into tomorrow’s finale.

Photography from LAPT8 Peru by Carlos Monti. You can also follow the action in Spanish here and in Portuguese here.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.