The Peruvian Carlos Noriega entered today’s final day as the short stack out of the final eight players. But he took his seat and battled gamely, all the while once again sitting behind the eyeglasses-wearing octopus he kept close to his chip stack for the entire tournament.
Noriega’s run has ended in seventh, however, not quite able to survive any longer at the eight-legged beast that is an LAPT final table.
Prior to Noriega’s demise, however, the seven remaining players had the tourney paused at the start of Level 28 in order to discuss flattening out the steep payout schedule for the remaining spots, which had originally appeared as follows:
1st: $164,940
2nd: $106,980
3rd: $74,400
4th: $55,760
5th: $41,980
6th: $31,440
7th: $23,340
It didn’t take long for the group to come to an agreement about how to restructure things, and in fact the result was primarily to take some off the top and spread it out below as follows:
1st: $123,840
2nd: $100,000
3rd: $80,000
4th: $60,000
5th: $50,000
6th: $45,000
7th: $40,000
It was only minutes later that Scott Diver was opening for 175,000 from under the gun (a little over 2x), then it folded around to Noriega in the big blind. Noriega looked out from beneath his cap from which tassels hang not unlike his octopus’s legs.
Noriega then pushed all in for his last 525,000, and Diver called without much pause.
Noriega had Q♥ 3♥ and Diver K♠Q♣ . The J♥ 10♥ 2♦ flop provided momentary hope for Noriega in the form of a flush draw, but after the 10♣ turn and 8♦ river his day was done.
Noriega collected his octopus, shook hands with the others, and trotted over to the cashier’s desk, the hop in his step probably inspired by the knowledge that his $40,000 payday was considerably more than what he’d have received without the just completed deal.
That hand pushes Diver up around the top of the counts at the moment as he, Richard Chauriye, and Victor Jesus Lay are all hovering around the 2.2 million-chip mark as Level 28 continues.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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