Friday, 29th March 2024 12:02
Home / Uncategorized / LAPT8 Peru: Watch out for your chips!

“Cuidado con las fichas!”

For a just a moment it was dark, then quickly light again. A mistakenly twisted dimmer had darkened the tournament floor for a second or two during Day 2 of the Latin American Poker Tour Peru Main Event, enough time for someone to call out jokingly his advice to all to “Watch your chips!”

The lights back up, the players kept right on watching their chips and those belonging to their opponents, too. We’re watching them as well so as to provide a quick report where things stand after four hours of play today.

As Level 14 concludes, the field has been reduced from the 129 who began the day down to just 65 players — 10 spots off the money. Two of the eliminations recently happened on one hand, resulting in a huge pot and a new chip leader in Peru’s Gabriel Diaz.

Following an early-position raise, Diaz had called from the hijack seat and the Brazilian Regis Kogler called as well from the big blind. The flop came 9♦ 3♣ Q♦ , the preflop raiser continued with a standard-size bet, and both of the others called.

After the 8♣ turn, Kogler checked again, the preflop raiser bet again, then Diaz raised, Kogler then shoved for 90,000, and both of his opponents called the shove with Diaz having everyone covered.

Kogler had J♥ 10â™  for a straight. So did Diaz, but he also had a diamond flush draw with J♦ 10♦ . Meanwhile the third player had two pair and a club flush draw with Q♣ 9♣ . The river then brought the 2♦ and a winning flush for Diaz, ending two players’ tournament runs while leaving Diaz with a newly-leading stack of around 250,000.

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Gabriel Diaz
Juan Calderon (210,000), Patricio Rojas (195,000), end-of-Day-1A leader Raul Alvarez (180,000), and Martin Sansour (170,000) are also thriving so far today, while former pace-setter Chadi Moustapha has slipped back to the pack with about 100,000.

The lone Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari was eliminated a little earlier after getting his below average stack in with Jâ™  J♦ versus an opponent’s Kâ™  Q♥ , then watching a king come among the community cards.

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Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari
Level 14 also saw Scott Davies lose the last of his fichas to fall shy of the cash, though not before our getting a chance to meet the WSOP APAC champion.

The bubble looms. More to come, so cuidado!

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.

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