Things looked dire for Victor Ramdin. With the blinds up to 500-1000 with a 100 ante, Ramdin had only 4,900 left– barely enough to survive two orbits. With the action folded around, the button moved all in, having Ramdin well-covered. The small blind folded and Ramdin peeked at his cards. The As-4c looked good to him and he slid his stack into the middle, cringing when his opponent turned up pocket nines.

The flop was Qd-Js-5c. Most players would be out of their chair and gathering their things at that point. But this is Victor Ramdin, folks.

The turn? The 4h. The river? The Ad. And just like that, the jovial, Bronx-based pro had life again with 12,200 in chips. Unfortunately, his reprieve wouldn’t last for long.

A short time later, Ramdin moved in with pocket aces and was called by an opponent with pocket eights. Safe flop, safe turn… but an eight on the river sent him off to the bar. Or the craps pit.

Victor Ramdin, all-in and awaiting his fate

Almost immediately afterward, Andre Akkari was crippled in similar fashion. All in with Q-Q against 5-5, Akkari’s opponent spiked a set on the river to chop out most of the Brazilian’s stack. Though Akkari was able to double up against Alex Brenes on a subsequent hand, he met his end on the very next deal, getting his money in with K-9 against A-8. An ace hit the flop, the king on the turn gave him a ray of hope, but the eight on the river sealed his elimination.

Queens cracked

And with that, Andre Akkari wins the (very unofficial…in fact completely fabricated) Team PokerStars Pro last-longer.

We’ll concede Jim Croce’s point. The south side of Chicago might very well be the baddest part of town, but go a little farther down Illinois’ I-55 and you best beware of a man named Ron Wasiel.

You might be a little bit like we are tonight and wondering where in the world Mr. Wasiel came from. He’s barely Google-able. He seems to have come from nowhere to climb the the top of the leader board in Day 1 action and it seems nothing can hold him back. On an all undercard board, his opponent has jacks, but Wasiel has queens. On a board reading AQ246 with two clubs, Wasiel makes what appears to be an exceptionally thin value bet (or, perhaps more likely, a bluff) at the pot for 5,000 and gets called. He turns over pocket eights. His opponent taps the table and concedes the eights are good.

Who is this man behind the dark Terminator glasses.

Turns out, Wasiel is a union painter from Illinois. This event in Punta is only his second major event. He went to Macau for the APPT but walked away without a cash. Still, it gave him a taste for the big live events. “It was fun,” he said. “It was an experience. I had Vanessa Rousso at my table. How often does a guy get to travel like this?”

Now, the man is amassing yellow 1,000 denomination chips like his paint buckets depend on it. At latest count, Wasiel had moved his stack north of 135,000. That’s not bad when you consider the chip average is around 30,000 right now.

You will typically find Wasiel on PokerStars playing $10 rebuy tournaments. He qualified for this event through a $10 3x chance event. With a firm hold on the chip lead, he could easily go back to his room and play a PokerStars tourney and still be near the top of the leaderboard on Day 2.

We’re going to guess he won’t do that. It takes a lot to be humble when you have more than four times the chip average, but that’s how Wasiel is carrying himself tonight.

“There’s some good players here,” he said. “Some really good players.”

GSN dawdled quite a bit this week in putting up episode 3 of High Stakes Poker on Youtube, but better late than never I say.

Alex Brenes is no stranger to this venue. Back in Season 1, Brenes had the LAPT Punta del Este title in sight, but came up just short of a victory, finishing second to Spain’s Jose Miguel Espinar. Yesterday, he played his second career final table here at the Mantra Resort and finished eighth, albeit in a tournament that originated 5,000 miles north of here in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico. Though Brenes made a bit of a late arrival here this afternoon, having indulged in a bit of celebration following his elimination last night, his tardiness has not deterred his progress in this event, where he is still alive and kicking.

Alex Brenes (foreground), and tablemate Andre Akkari

Much like his gregarious older brother Humberto, Alex plays a tight-aggressive style (though he’s a far quieter presence at the table than the “Chark”). Ergo, when he moved all in over the top of an early position player’s 2,075 opening raise and received a call, it wasn’t too big of a surprise to see him turn over a premium hand. And premium it was– Brenes was in perhaps the best pre-flop spot in Texas hold’em, his Kc-Kd up against Ks-Qd.

By our observations, Latin American players tend to be a boisterous and emotional bunch (the over/under on outburts of “VAMO!” is about 3.5 per level), but Brenes hardly batted an eye as the board safely ran out Jc-7h-4c-6h-2c, increasing his stack from a “push and pray” 6,975 to a far more workable 15,800. He certainly has his work cut out for him, as the always-dangerous Andre Akkari is now seated on his right.

A daily double at PokerStars by Daniel "Allanon85" Drescher headlined online poker action early in the week. Drescher started his great day by taking down the difficult daily $100+rebuy NLHE at Stars, then topped off a great…

If you’ve ever thrown a really big party, you know the feeling. You invite everybody, spend a of of time preparing, and then deal with the rush of people through the front door. People are eating, drinking, and rummaging through your drawers. One of your friends has shaved your cat and hidden it either in the pantry or clothes dryer. There comes a point at which you must stop and take notice of where you stand. Is there enough food left? Are you about to run out of tequila? What’s that meowing sound coming from the bread box?

That’s sort of where we are now. After eight hours of sheer madness (somebody threw a chair on a table at one point, if that tells you anything), things have finally settled into simple, controlled pandemonium that we have come to love so much. Finally, we’re able to take stock of the room.

We started the day with 327 people who put up $3,700 to play in Uruguay’s biggest poker event. Now playing for a prize pool that has eclipsed $1.1 million, 130 players remain after the dinner break. Only 36 of those players will walk away with money (see how much on our LAPT Punta del Este prizes and winners page). As we mentioned before the break, Ron Wasiel is our chip leader with 120,000 chips (check out a few other selected counts on our LAPT Punta del Este chip counts page). Among those dearly departed are Maria “maridu” Mayrinck, J.C. Alvarado, and Greg Raymer. All of them exited just before dinner.

It’s unclear at this moment exactly how long we’ll be in action tonight, but it’s looking like we’ll be running until a little past 1am, at which point Tournament Director Mike Ward hopes to be down between 54 and 63 players.

After that, it will be to bed, to sleep, and to dream about where that infernal meowing is coming from.

Scientists have determined that large amounts of red meat in a short period of time can cause a rapid onset of euphoria and nausea typically associated with illegal hallucinogenic drugs. As we and the assembled poker rumblers have just exited the hotel’s House of Steak Orgy, assume that we will be coming down off this high for the next few minutes.

We promise we’ll be back and straight-headed in a matter of moments. In the meantime, please enjoy the PokertStars Video Blog team’s recent interview with team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin.

Watch LAPT Punta del Este S2: Victor Ramdin Quick Catch Up on PokerStars.tv

Mere feet from the tournament room sits a giant hearth. A sweating man in a chef’s hat maniacally throws giant logs into the flames. He stares at the fire until he feels it’s right and then he throws giant slabs of red meat on the adjoining grill. It is, in a word, beautiful.

Play began here shortly after noon today. Now coming up on eight o’clock, the assembled poker players are being forced to play one more hour as dinner begins to cook. Normally, this would be no big deal. However the smell of bubbling beef fat hitting the hot coals hurts in a place only hungry poker players know. It is, in another word, torture.

We can’t say for sure how this could affect the level of play over the next few minutes, but we feel sure it’s not going to help anyone concentrate on pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds, or for that matter, how to even play the game of poker. These players know that when the clock hits zero, they can run, grab their seats, and get their meat on. For now, though, we must concentrate on the task at hand.

As we careen headlong toward the dinner break (…sirloin), it appears we have two players fighting for the chip lead. Our most recent counts put Ron Wasiel out in front with 110,000. Spain’s Alberto Font is next on the list with 70,000 chips. Brazil’s Magno Aragao is not far behind with 65,000 (…filet mignon). To put those stacks in perspective, the chip average currently sits somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 (…chorizo sausage…).

Ron Wasiel

In all honesty, there may be no better smell than what is currently wafting through this room. We honestly thought we could go our entire careers without writing that sentence about a poker room, but, as they say, it is what it is.

You’re going to have to excuse us for a bit. If we don’t get out ahead of these poker players, there won’t be any beef left for us. And that would be, in a final word, tragedy.

Greg Raymer showed all the signs of a man who was card-dead. With a ring of spectators watching his every move, Raymer folded hand after hand, giving a little eyebrow raise or shaking his head ever-so-slightly as he was dealt pair after pair of rags. Still, he chatted up his table and cracked jokes as he waited for a playable hand, his stack barely past the 10,000 he started with.

The hand started innocently enough. With the blinds at 300/600 with a 75 ante, there was an opening raise to 1,500. One caller. Then two. Then three– all before the action came around to Raymer in the small blind.

“I know if I squeeze here, I’m gonna get at least two callers. Maybe even three,” he speculated, before taking a look at his hole cards. What he saw was apparently enough, and Raymer announced that he was all-in for the 10,000 and change he had in front of him.

“I’ll get into character” he quipped, donning his signature glasses and crossing his arms over his chest.

The initial raiser folded, as did his first caller but Alejandro Bonanata, the second caller behind him, moved his own stack into the middle. That got Johannes Korsar, the third caller, to muck his hand and the rail craned their collective necks as the two prepared to show down.

“I only looked at one” said Raymer, revealing the As. Bonanata showed Jd-Js and Raymer reached for his second card, turning up the Qc.

Raymer shows his first card

“I feel good about this one… I think I’m going to win it” said Raymer as the dealer burned and turned.

The flop came down Ac-9s-2s. The turn was the 4h and it looked like FossilMan would at last earn his double-up.

Until the Jh cruelly hit the river. Holy two-outers, Batman.

Ouch…

Gracious as ever, Raymer asked for the proper spelling of his opponent’s name and proceeded to sign the shiny gray fossil he had been using as his card protector and handed it across the table as a parting gift as he made his exit.

With the dinner break approaching, we’re down to 154 players.