Home / Poker News August 2008 / LAPT Punta del Este Day 1 sees Raymer, Carter atop the leaderboard
LAPT Punta del Este Day 1 sees Raymer, Carter atop the leaderboard
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2008-08-09 17:57
The coastal resort in Uruguay saw quite an outstanding crowd descend on it on Day 1 of the Latin American Poker Tour. This crowd wasn’t looking to catch waves or rays though: they were after a share of the prize pool of $851,175 which the PokerStars LAPT’s Punta del Este event had on offer.
Names like Humberto Brenes, Vanessa Rousso, Brandon Cantu, Jason Mercier, David Rheem, Bary Greenstein and Greg Raymer highlighted the event which saw quite a furious start. The 351 participants wasted no time and began hacking away at opponents’ chip-stacks in a hurry. Some were more successful than others in this undertaking. David Rheem had a tough time chipping up despite the fact that he went out of his way to add to his stack. Eventually, he struck a deal with David Palsson, and they both went all in preflop on a couple of rag starting hands. When they turned their cards over, Rheem’s 9,6 had Palsson’s 6,4 dominated, but a 4 landed on the river which sent Rheem packing.
Barry Greenstein was another Day 1 casualty. He went all-in on his pocket tens only to be called down by Teddy Peterson with pocket aces. To make matters worse, another A landed on the flop, which promptly sent Greenstein to the rail.
Greg Raymer had an excellent Day 1. He kept hovering about the top of the leaderboard and made one great call after another. One of his best moves of the day was when he trapped Andre Akkari’s pocket Queens while holding pocket Aces. The board didn’t improve any of the hands involved, and thus Raymer found himself in the provisional chip-lead. At the end of the day, the position would be snatched from him by Carter Gill though, however, Raymer remained in possession of a very respectably sized stack.
Gill was lucky enough to be aided by the deal several times early on, but his skills were displayed on a couple of occasions when he made some excellent calls. Humberto Brenes and Alex Brenes also made it through Day 1, so they too are still in contention for a share of the prize-pool.
