Friday, 29th March 2024 14:03
Home / Uncategorized / LAPT8 Uruguay: Dr. Lopez leads final 24, Mojave advances

Ninety-five players –including one Scooby-Doo— showed up for Day 2 and less than eight levels later, only 24 were left.

Leading the double dozen is Mario Lopez, who finished the day with 706,000.

Lopez, who has more than $1.4 million in live-tournament earnings, is a medical doctor when he’s not winning hundreds of thousands of dollars at poker tournaments.

Mario_Lopez_LAPT8Uruguay_Day2lead.jpeg

Mario Lopez
One of those large scores came from a victory here in the LAPT. Just last year, Lopez won LAPT7 Chile for $117,991.

But Lopez’s most recent six-figure score came less than a month ago in Barcelona. There, Lopez took down the largest-ever Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event and won $451,107.

That wasn’t even the first time this year Lopez won nearly $400,000. During this year’s WSOP, Lopez finished 2nd in the $1,111 Little One for One Drop and earned $399,455.

ESPT_Barcelon'_Winner_Mario Lopez.jpg

Mario Lopez celebrating his Estrellas Poker Tour win
Lopez started the day in the top half of the field but quickly started chipping up and took a large lead as we closed in on the bubble.

Despite missing out on a chance to knock out a few more opponents, Lopez managed to hold on to his lead and will come back tomorrow as our chip leader.

Friend of PokerStars Felipe Mojave also made it through the day and will start Day 3 with 124,000.

Felipe_Ramos_LAPTUruguay8_Day2.jpeg

Mojave made it to the tournament just in time too. He arrived on Day 1b alongside Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari after spending 30-hours in transit.

The two had a good excuse though, they had spent the previous day teaching celebrities poker in a Spanish castle.

Now Mojave will try to lead by example and win the LAPT trophy.

While Mojave doesn’t have an LAPT victory on his resume, a few players in the field do. Aside from Lopez, both Patricio Rojas and Claudio Moya are former LAPT champions.

There are even a pair of LAPT second-place finishers in the field. Both Chadi Moustapha and Renata Teixeira finished 2nd in an LAPT this season and both will come back tomorrow to see if they can get another shot at the final table.

Thumbnail image for Renata_Teixeira_LAPT8Uruguay_Day22.jpeg

Renata Teixeira
We’ll find out who those final eight will be tomorrow.

Join us at noon UTC-3:00 as we play down to the LAPT8 Uruguay final table.

Photography from LAPT8 Uruguay by Carlos Monti. You can also follow the action in Spanish and in Portuguese.

Alexander Villegas is a freelance contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app