While the focus of the poker world is now set squarely on Las Vegas and the 2012 World Series of Poker (WSOP), there are still other live poker tournaments taking place all over the world. One of them, the Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) Punta del Este stop, wrapped up Sunday with Brazil’s Marcelo Ramos Da Fonseca topping the 375 player field to take down his first ever live tournament title and $144,240.
If you skipped down to the list of final table payouts, you may notice that there is a significant gap between the money awarded to Pablo Joaquin Melogno in 4th place ($60,420) and Francisco Baruffi Neto in 3rd place ($116,240). This is the result of a deal made amongst the top three finishers when they all held approximately equal chip stacks. They didn’t start three-handed play like that, but after double-ups by both Fonseca and Baruffi probably made the three men realize that the tide can turn any which way that late in the game, regardless of any individual player’s skill.
Baruffi was the one to broach the topic of a deal after he doubled through Angel Guillen, suggesting they split the remaining prize pool three ways. This would have given each just shy of $129,000, close to the $133,688 that would have gone to the second place finisher without a deal. In the end, they agreed to each get $116,240 and play for the remaining $38,000.
Shortly after the deal was settled upon, Guillen crippled Baruffi, leaving him with barely more than a big blind. The next hand was Baruffi’s last, as his A♥-5♠ fell to Fonseca’s 9♠-9♣.
Going into heads-up play, Fonseca had a moderate chip lead, 4.1 million to Guillen’s 3.5 million. The two men then decided to adjust the previous deal, allotting $28,000 of the $38,000 left on the table to first place and the remaining $10,000 to second place.
Fonseca never gave up his lead for the entire hour and a half duration of the one-on-one match. Because of the cautiousness of both players, though, he also never stretched the lead to the point where a victory looked completely inevitable. But just like that, it ended.
Fonseca made a min-raise pre-flop to 200,000 and shockingly, Guillen moved all-in for 2.8 million. Fonseca called immediately with A♣-K♥, obviously happy to see Guillen’s A♠-9♣. The flop of T♥-7♠-J♠ gave a tiny bit of extra hope to Guillen, as he now had a gutshot straight draw, but neither the turn nor river helped at all and Marcelo Ramos Da Fonseca was the LAPT Punta del Este champion.
This win almost double’s Fonseca’s total career earnings in live tournaments. He had gone into the final table with six lifetime cashes for a total of $171,896.
2012 LAPT Punta del Este – Final Table Results
1. Marcelo Ramos Da Fonseca – $144,240
2. Angel Guillen – $126,240
3. Francisco Baruffi Neto – $116,240
4. Pablo Joaquin Melogno – $60,420
5. Ivan Luca – $46,000
6. Osvaldo Silvio Resquin – $35,970
7. Vladimir Dobrovolskiy – $26,770
8. Guido Ruffini – $20,080
9. Carlos Leoncio Mironiuk – $15,390
