Marcelo Fonseca, 25, currently lives in Porto Alegre and has a degree in Administration, but turned poker pro shortly after leaving university two years ago. He started playing home games with his friends and decided to invest some time playing online. The switch to online poker paid off as he placed 22nd in the 2010 WCOOP #1 beating a field of more than 9,000 players. He has played LAPT events in the past, but this is first cash in the richest poker tour of Latin America.
This is the first time the 24 year-old Joao Bauer has ever played an LAPT or any other international event, but he is an online phenom known as "joao bauer." While he's done exceptionally well in many PokerStars tournaments, his claim to fame is winning a 2010 World Championship of Online Poker bracelet after beating out a field of more than 12,000 players.
Alex Manzano was the Day 2 chip leader here at LAPT Sao Paulo and comes into the final table in second place in chips. At 26 years old, he lives in Chile. A civil engineer, Manazano owns a sushi restaurant. This will be his biggest ever live finish.
Leandro Csome is today's final table chip leader. At 28, he is mostly a live player and plays locally in Argentina. He has travelled to LAPT events in the past, but never cashed until now. This will be his biggest cash outside of his homeland. Before turning pro three years ago, he was a hairdresser and his online nickname "Pelu" is a reflection of the previous skills he mastered.
At 28 years old, Bruno Politano hails from Fortaleza in the Northeast of Brazil. Politano is very well known in the Brazilian poker community. Having played poker for the past five years, Politano has some very big live and online finishes. His friends know him as "Foster," a nickname he picked up when playing "Quake" in his teens.
The 29-year-old Henrique Bernardes is a lawyer who has been playing poker for the past seven years. Of the final table players, Bernardes poker experience is the most limited. He says he normally just plays home games with his friends and is fairly nervous to be at the final table.
The 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour São Paulo Main Event will be remembered as the first main event in LAPT history to draw more than 500 players, a sign of poker's contuining progress in this part of the world. But when all is said and done, only one player can be the champion, no matter how many are in the starting field. Today we'll learn who that champion is.
He'll come from a short list of eight remaining players. His home county will be either Brazil, Argentina, Chile or Mexico. There's never been a Brazilian champion in the three seasons of the LAPT's existence. Could this Season 4-opening tournament be the moment when the Brazilians finally break through?
If it's going to be, the five Brazilians will have some work to do:
Final Table Seating and Chips
Seat
Player
Chips
Country
1
Santiago Nadal
555,000
Mexico
2
Marcio Motta
1,205,000
Brazil
3
Marcelo Fonseca
1,245,000
Brazil
4
Joao Bauer
1,395,000
Brazil
5
Alex Manzano
1,730,000
Chile
6
Leandro Csome
2,875,000
Argentina
7
Bruno Politano
1,030,000
Brazil
8
Henrique Bernardes
440,000
Brazil
Play begins at 1pm local time, in about 45 minutes. From there we won't stop until the champion is known. Stick around -- this final table could be a show-stopper.
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