Latin APT
admin on December 17th, 2008
A highlight of May 2008 was the inauguration of the Latin American Poker Tour.
Known as LAPT for short, the Latin American Poker Tour shares with fellow international poker series’, the World Poker Tour, the European Poker Tour and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour, both the format (No Limit Texas Holdem freezeouts) and major sponsor, PokerStars.
In fact, a big treat at each year’s event is the opportunity to compete against acclaimed members of Team PokerStars Pros, like Kid Poker Daniel Negreaunu and WSOP Main Event champs Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker.
The structure of each LAPT event is the same, with each player starting with $20,000 in chips, and the blinds raising every hour, from their starting level of $25 and $50 through $30,000 and $60,000 (or as high as necessary until a winner is declared). Starting in 4th hour of play a similarly increasing ante is added into mix.
Every Latin American Poker Tour event also includes a “Second Chance” tournament giving people knocked out of the running in the Main Event an opportunity to still walk away a winner.
In 2008 there were 3 Latin American Poker Tour events, held in 3 Latin American Countries: Brazil, Costa Rica, and Uruguay. In 2009, Mexico was added to the list.
Although buy-in to LAPT Main Events currently run $2,500, many of the top poker sites, not least of which is sponsor PokerStars, offer a combination of ways to win free seats into the LAPT. One way is by winning one of many satellite qualifiers and LAPT promotional tournaments throughout the year leading up to the event. The other is by redeeming frequent player points (or the comparable currency of the given poker sites’ loyalty programs).
