Thursday, 28th March 2024 11:40
Home / Uncategorized / LAPT8 Chile: Talking evolution and growth for the LAPT

The LAPT Player Lounge has been a busy place this week, and it saw more action prior to the start of play this morning with a special “Breakfast with the Pros” featuring food, drink, and conversation with LAPT President David Carrion and Team PokerStars Pro Christian de Leon.

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Tour talk at a morning meeting

The get-together provided an opportunity to talk about the present and future of the LAPT, with various topics covered.

For Season 8 the Main Event buy-ins have been increased from $1,700 to $2,500. The move will likely decrease field sizes from last year although prize pools could stay the same or increase. For example, this year’s LAPT Chile event has about two-thirds the entries of what we saw in Season 7, but the prize pool is nearly the same.

Players discussed with Carrion and de Leon the pros and cons of that change, as well as the relative merits of freezeouts versus reentry events. One move being contemplated down the road may be to change from the current unlimited reentry format to one-time reentry (e.g., one entry per Day 1 flight).

There was also talk of how LAPT satellites are planned for, scheduled, and run on PokerStars, plus some interesting statistics shared regarding the fields for LAPT events. Only 4% of players in Season 7 played in all of the LAPT events, while 60% were playing an LAPT for the first time.

While we’re on the subject of percentages, we can share some figures regarding the nationalities of players for LAPT Chile Main Event as well.

Host country Chile was the best represented of the 24 nations sending players to Viña del Mar this week, having 152 entries of the 410 (37.1%). Argentina was next with 102 (24.9%), followed by Brazil with 76 (18.5%). Here are the figures, served up in easy-to-digest pie form (click to enlarge):

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It was a productive session, indicative of the continued evolution and growth of the tour as it moves into its eighth season. Meanwhile, the Main Event continues to evolve, and chip leader’s Nicolas Fierro’s stack continues to grow.

Fierro just knocked out Fernando Garcia — who, ironically, goes by the name “groww” on PokerStars — in a huge pot. That one carried Fierro’s stack up over 300,000 with 120 players left midway through Level 12.

Photography from LAPT8 Chile by Carlos Monti. Watch the stream at LAPT Live. You can also follow the action in Spanish on the PokerStars blog and on Facebook, and in Portuguese on the blog and on Facebook.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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