Day 1 Concludes With Juan Jose Perez In The Lead
Season 4 of the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) resumed on Thursday with Day 1 of LAPT Punta del Este, presented by Pokerstars.net. A field of 422 came to play, generating a total prize pool of $941,480. After eight levels of Day 1 action, 188 remain with hopes of capturing the $244,720 first-place prize.
It was a swing and a miss for the members of Team PokerStars today as none survived Day 1. Defending Champion Jose "Nacho" Barbero was the first to fall, and was soon followed out the door by Angel Guillen, Greg DeBora, and Christian de Leon. Gualter Salles and Leo Fernandez made it to Level 8, but could not find any short-stack magic to stay alive for Day 2.
Fernandez's elimination was particularly cruel and helped add to the stack of Day 1 chip leader Juan Jose Perez. After seeing Perez limp in and another opponent shove for 15,100, Fernandez called all in for 6,700 from the small blind. Perez called to put both players at risk, but was behind with 
against Fernandez's 
and the other player's 
. Perez nailed the board, though, as it came down 
to score the double knockout. He's on top of the chip counts with 197,500.
Day 2 resumes at noon local time tomorrow, so be sure to keep it here at PokerNews for all of the action. Until then, goodnight from Uruguay!