If at first you don’t succeed, rebuy until you win the tournament.

Theoretically, this technique can only work for one person. Pragmatically, it would result in a lot of depleted bankrolls.

A few players are going for at least their second shot today in day 1b.

Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari and Christian De Leon have both bought into day 1b after failing to make it through yesterday. Both Team Pros are LAPT veterans, claiming victories in side events and making main event final tables.

Team PokerStars Pro Christian De LeonAn LAPT title has evaded both team pros so far though, but they’re hoping to change that in the next few days.

Also taking another shot at the title today are Ari Engel and Dominick Zito.

Engel and Zito both play poker for a living but go about it in different ways. Zito is one of the few PokerStars players that racked up 1 million FPPs in the 2014 calendar year to make it to Supernova Elite.

Zito did this by playing single-table Sit & Gos, thousands and thousands of Sit & Gos.

It’s a more steady source of income than tournaments, Zito says, and he only plays tournaments like this one in hopes of scoring a big payday.

Dominick “dombomain33” ZitoZito is also hunting his first LAPT cash.

Engel on the other hand is a veteran of live tournaments. Engel has racked up more than $2 million in live tournament earnings. Engel has been racking up live tournament cashes since 2006, the golden age of online poker.

Engel has several tournament victories and three six-figure scores with the biggest being $177,045. His $2 million comes from grinding tournaments across the world throughout the years.

Ari EngelEngel has cashed in the LAPT before but is looking to score another victory on Latin American turf.

Another player firing another bullet but looking to score his first tournament cash outside his home country is Shakeeb Kazemipur. A student at the University of Calgary, Kazemipur won the Sunday Million a few weeks ago and decided to play LAPT8 Panama and backpack throughout South America during summer break.

Shakeeb KazemipurSome players decided to wait until today to take their first shot at the title.

One of these newcomers used to be a local.

Brent Sheirbon moved down to Panama in 2007 and lived here until recently. Sheirbon made the long trek to Colombia and settled down there with his girlfriend.

Originally from the United States, Sheirbon has been on the Latin American poker scene since he moved to Costa Rica in 2006.

In that time, Sheirbon has cashed several times in the LAPT and made two LAPT final tables. Sheirbon, like many others in the field, won’t be satisfied until he claims a trophy.

Even if he wins one, he’ll be back for another.

Several other fresh faces and qualifiers took their seats for the first time today and we’re expecting even more.

The number of entrants has already surpassed day 1a. There are currently 158 entries for day 1b and registration is still open until the end of dinner break.

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For multilingual coverage, check out our Spanish PokerStars Blog and our Brazilian PokerStars Blog. If you’re more of a watcher, head over to LAPT Live to check out the live stream. Updates are also available on the LAPT Facebook page.

All photos are snapped by Carlos Monti and all words are clacked by Alexander Villegas.

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