Friday, 29th March 2024 11:15
Home / Uncategorized / LAPT5 Punta del Este: From sunrise to sunset

lapt-promo.gifUruguay is located along the southeastern coast of South America. To the north is Brazil. Water surrounds most of the rest of the small country, with the Uruguay River and Rio de la Plata estuary to the west and south separating Uruguay and Argentina, and the Atlantic Ocean lapping up against the country’s southern and eastern edges.

As the name suggests, Punta del Este sits on kind of a “point” — the east point, naturally — of the bay of Maldonado. A unique feature of the geography is that from Punta del Este one can actually see the sun both rise and set on water, coming up out of the Atlantic then disappearing beyond the Rio de la Plata.

The dawning of the Season 5 version of the LAPT Punta del Este Main Event came a little late today, delayed just a bit to begin about a half-hour after the scheduled noon start. As Dave Behr explained earlier, when players arrived they were situated throughout the Mantra Casino, with tables in a large main poker room, a few more outside of that, and a number also upstairs in the casino proper.

By the time registration ended a total of 375 players had taken seats in those various locations, together creating a total prize pool of $836,620. The top 56 finishers will be dividing up those riches, with $186,200 going to the player holding all of the chips when the sun finally sets on the 2012 LAPT Punta de Este Main Event sometime Sunday evening.

Uruguay’s own Alex Komaromi was the winner here last August during Season 4, topping a similarly large field to capture a first prize of $244,720. Komaromi is here today to defend his title, and through the first five hour-long levels has accumulated a few chips to build a stack of around 35,000. That’s ahead of the average of around 25,000 at the moment with the field having shrunk thus far to just under 300.

laptpuntadeleste-season5-komaromi.jpg

Season 4 LAPT Punta del Este champion Alex Komaromi is back to defend his title.

It’s a good start. But there’s a long way to go. Nearly seven-and-a-half million chips’ worth, that is, for Komaromi to claim in order to snare another LAPT trophy for Uruguay.

Despite the late start, we’ll be ending relatively early today as the plan is to stop after just six levels. That’ll probably add up to longer days going forward, but a relatively early exit today.

That also means the Day 1 survivors — and those of us reporting on them — will likely be leaving the Mantra before dark tonight, thereby getting a chance to gaze across the water upon that picturesque sunset.

laptpuntadeleste-season5-sunset.jpg

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app