Rob Woodcock has history here in Costa Rica.
It was just last year that the British PokerStars Supernova came to San Jose and ended Day 1 as the chip leader. He went on to finish in 9th place for $17,098. While a good finish, he certainly hoped for more. Now, he’s apparently decided to go for the final table again.
In a day that saw the chip leader change like the Costa Rican breezes, Woodcock has emerged again as the Day 1 chip leader. After starting the day on 20,000, he beat Brazilian Marcelo Dabus in a 120,000 pot and ended the day on 147,600. He will lead the other 120 players left in the field as Day 2 begins tomorrow.
Playa Conchal, this beautiful place along the Costa Rican Gold Coast, forces people to confront an age old issue. Although poker is as fun a game as we’ve found, it’s nearly impossible to concentrate on flops and rivers when there is a beautiful ocean just yards away from the poker room. Among the 259 starters today, at least half the field found themselves thinking more about the beach than poker. They are all now free to enjoy the beach, pool, fruity drinks, and the ubiquitous pineapple plates around the resort. The other half will come back tomorrow to fight toward the money.
Today, the LAPT was full of Team PokerStars Pros, including the likes of Andre Akkari, Angel Guillen, Alex Gomes, Jose Barbero, Christian de Leon, J.C. Alvarado, Leo Fernandez, Gualter “stockcar99” Salles, and Maria “maridu” Mayrinck. We were also happy to see Veronica Dabul and local godfather Humberto Brenes. Of all the Team Pros in the field, we only had to bid goodbye to Dabul. She took down Brenes’ Shark Hunt Charity tournament last night and must have used up all her run good.
Chasing Rob Woodcock for the chip lead is American Tyler Netter who held the top spot for most of the day and finished the day with more than 120,000 chips. Sitting on almost an identical stack is Icelander Daniel Mar Palsson.
Those players and about ten dozen more are now free to enjoy a good dinner before bedding down for the night to dream of making the money.
And what will they be playing for when the come back on Day 2? Well we’ve detailed that over on our LAPT Playa Conchal prize structure and winners page. If you don’t feel like clicking through, here it is in brief: The top 40 players will get paid. The player who makes it to the end will cash for $172,095. Not bad for four days work.
We’ve posted a short list of selected chip counts over on our LAPT chip counts page. When the tournament staff provides a full list of counts tonight, we’ll post a link to it in the little black box at the top right of this page.
If you’re into reading this coverage in the language in which the LAPT might imply, feel free to head over to PokerStarsBlog.la for coverage in Spanish and PokerStarsBlog.net/br for coverage in our Brazilian’s version of Portuguese.
Or, if you’d prefer to stick to English, you’ll find a complete list of our coverage from Day 1 at the end of this post.
We’ll be back at noon Central Time on Friday to start Day 2. In the meantime, have yourself a good night.
Easing into it
Shaking off the morning
Wipeout for the surfer boy
BrenesWatch Part 1
Adios, Maria
Ramdin needs a new belt
BrenesWatch Part Two, Alex vs. “Obama”
I’ll follow the sun
Tres reinas
They’ve been there before
Gomes flushes Lerner
Better to be Netter
BrenesWatch Part 3
