The Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) Grand Final narrowed its field down to the final table Sunday as just eight players remain out of the original 367. With a buy-in of R$3,700 or about USD $2,155, the total prize pool amounts to USD $1,343,100, with R$324,600 going to the winner. Leading the finalists in Sao Paulo, Brazil is Germany’s Daniele Nestola with almost 1.9 million chips.
It was a day of big hands for Daniele Nestola, who started the day with 443,000 chips, good enough to lead his table and place him amongst the overall chip leaders. He had played steadily for the first couple hours, growing his stack to over 600,000, when he used pocket Aces to knock out Hugo Mora and his A-Q in 18th place. That hand almost doubled-up Nestola, increasing his chip stack to 1.18 million.
Within an hour, he had fallen back under 900,000 and then took another tumble against Ioannis Beris. Beris raised pre-flop to 27,000, Nestola three-bet to 68,000 on the button, and Beris four-bet all-in for 376,000. Nestola made the call with A-K, accepting a coin flip against Beris’ pocket Jacks. The flop of 2-5-7 was good for Beris, but the 4 on the turn made him a little nervous, as it gave Nestola a gut-shot straight possibility to go along with his two over cards. The river blanked, though, and Beris doubled-up while Nestola dropped all the way to 470,000, close to where he started Day 3.
It didn’t take Nestola long to get it back, though. Only about 20 minutes later, he raised pre-flop to 26,000 and Daniel Negreanu followed with a three-bet to 66,000. Nestola made the call and the two saw a flop of 3d-Qc-Td. Nestola checked from under the gun and Negreanu bet 72,000 from the button. That was just what Nestola was looking for, as he then moved all-in for 395,000 total. Negreanu called and the two revealed their cards: Nestola had pocket Tens for a set, while Negreanu held Ad-Qd for top pair and the nut flush draw. The turn produced the As, giving Negreanu a chance for a boat if he could find another Ace or Queen, but the river was only the 4h, giving Nestola the almost half million chip pot. That took Nestola up to 956,000 and sent Negreanu down to 707,000. Still a good stack for “Kid Poker,” but nearly what it could have been.
As the day went on, Nestola racked up the eliminations. He knocked out Paulo Grendene in 15th place, Caio Pimenta in 12th place, and then Ioannis Beris in 10th place, gaining about one million chips total in the process. Those last two eliminations essentially accounted for the chip difference between Nestola and the current second place runner, Carlos Ibarra.
For his part, Daniel Negreanu had a roller coaster day, moving up and down the leader board seemingly every other hand. Negreanu did make a bit of poker history Sunday, becoming the first player ever to make a final table on the Latin American Poker Tour, European Poker Tour, and Asia Pacific Poker Tour.
Play will resume at noon Sao Paulo time on Monday.
2012 Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final – End of Day 3 Standings
Daniele Nestola (Germany) – 1,892,000
Carlos Ibarra (Chile) – 1,297,000
Gasperino Nicolas (Venezuela) – 1,190,000
Jonathan Markovits (Ecuador) – 991,000
Daniel Negreanu (Canada) – 702,000
Juan Gonzalez (Argentina) – 548,000
Felipe Morbiducci (Chile) – 347,000
Vitor Torres (Brazil) – 273,000
2012 Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final – Final Table Payouts ($R)
1. $324,600
2. $214,700
3. $148,840
4. $89,570
5. $64,540
6. $48,730
7. $35,560
8. $26,340
