Latin American Poker Tour Playa Conchal, Day 1
Living the “pura vida” (pure life in English), is how they do things down in Costa Rica, and the 259 players who showed up yesterday afternoon to play the PokerStars.net LAPT Playa Conchal stop will get a small taste of the laid-back Tican lifestyle over the extended weekend as the $2,700 buy-in main event unfolds.
Held at the all-inclusive Paradisus Playa Conchal resort on Costa Rica’s Gold Coast, Playa Conchal is the inaugural stop on the LAPT’s Season 3 schedule. Poker players from around the world, both amateur and professional, traveled to the beautiful Costa Rican province of Guanacaste for this four-day affair, which kicked off at midday on Thursday afternoon.
Team PokerStars Pros turned out in full force for the event, with representatives from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, U.S. and of course, Costa Rica, attending the event. Of those, Gualter Salles (Brazil), Victor Ramdin (U.S.) and PokerStars sponsored player, Christian de Leon (Mexico) had the best showings, bagging 61,700, 52,600, and 68,300 in chips respectively at the end of Day 1.
Impressively, for a second consecutive year, Rob Woodcock from Leeds in the U.K. finished Day 1 of the LAPT Costa Rica Main Event as the overnight chip leader. Woodcock amassed a field-leading stack of 147,600 in chips and is poised to make another deep run in this event. After locking up the Day 1 chip lead in 2008, Woodcock went on to finish in ninth place.
Jean-Robert Bellande, Paul Magriel, David ‘WhooooKidd’ Baker, David Plastik, Jon Friedberg, and Veronica Dabul all came out to play as well, but none were able to get anything going and will watch Day 2 from the sidelines.
Here’s a quick look the top 10 in chips heading into Day 2:
Rob Woodcock – 147,600
Matias Bienen Wald – 124,400
Tyler Netter – 123,500
Daniel ‘djaniel’ Mar – 121,600
Steven Merrifield – 117,100
Clay Maguire – 114,400
Pandilica Alin – 100,400
William Reynolds – 93,000
Garoar Geir Hauksson – 92,600
Andre Clinton Franke – 92,200
Action resumes at noon local time this afternoon (GMT -6) when the remaining 119 players begin the second leg of their trek toward the money. Follow all of the action right here at PokerNews.com!
