Manzano is the Apple of Day 2's Eye
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I'm not going to lie. I was all set to write a "Jack Bauer"-themed recap of the action on Day 2 of the 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour São Paulo Main Event. It was going to be a brilliant on Brazil's João Bauer, who was leading things late. Then, in the final two hours of play, Chile's Alex Manzano threw a big ol' wrench into those plans.
Manzano, you see, turned into a set-flopping machine and started eliminating players almost at will. In rapid succession he took out three players: Alexis Zervos, against whom Manzano flopped top set and then faded a flush draw; Neuri Jose Campos, who got it in pre-flop with ace-king against Manzano's pocket queens, set on the flop for Manzano; and perhaps the run-best of them all, João Torres, whose pocket kings went down in flames to Manzano's pocket fours, all-in pre-flop for about 500,000, when Manzano flopped a third four.
I should be fair to Manzano. Although he ran great at the end of the day, he also played well in the early and middle stages of play. He put himself in a position to take each of those late-day hands to the river without putting himself at risk of busting by selectively and aggressively chipping up throughout the day.
Manzano wasn't the only person who chipped up by playing great. Although Manzano is at the head of the class with 1,189,000 chips, he has a few excellent competitors barely trailing him. The aforementioned João Bauer is next in line with 1,089,000 chips, thanks in no small part to a pot worth about 800,000 chips in which Bauer's pocket kings out-flopped Marcelo Andrade's pocket aces, all-in pre-flop. Right behind Bauer is Day 1 chip leader Leandro Csome. He put on a big-stack clinic on the bubble of the tournament by constantly putting his shorter-stacked competitors to the test for all of their chips. Csome flirted with 1,000,000 in chips late in the day before ultimately settling at 959,000.
Rounding out the Top Five are Bruno Foster (766,000) and Amos Ben Haim (687,000). Also still alive and returning tomorrow are Team PokerStar Pro (Costa Rica) Humberto Brenes (601,000) and Daniela Zapiello (235,000), a previous LAPT final tablist and the only woman remaining in the field.
Tomorrow the remaining 24 players will return at 1pm local time to play down to a final table of 8. We expect that process to take somewhere between six and eight hours, a relatively quick day compared to the lengthy first two days of this event. Until then, you can find us at the bar.