After a fifteen-day hiatus, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Patrik Antonius finally resumed their $200-$400 pot-limit Omaha challenge match on Monday evening, completing 914 hands over the course of three hours. Previously down…

A wise man once said, when a room is packed to the rafters, it’s good to have an escalator.* Fortunately, the Mantra Resort and Casino has several.

The buy-in for the second season in Punta del Este went up this year to $3,700. Most folks here expected the field to be significantly smaller than last year. Suffice it to say, the crowd of 327 players was a pleasant surprise for everybody. We can’t say it enough: even in a tough economy, the LAPT seems to be recession-proof. The players who made it through the day are playing for their share of a $1.1 million prize pool.

Fortunately for everybody involved, the tournament organizers had room for everybody. It took putting a few tables up the escalator in the main casino, but everybody who wanted a seat got one. That was when the carnage began. People screamed. Chairs flew in the air and landed on tables. Somebody cooked a lot of steak. Somewhere, a feral dog barked. It was yet another day on the Latin American Poker Tour.

Today’s field was packed with some of the biggest names on the tour: Andre Akkari, Humberto Brenes, Dennis Phillips, Greg Raymer, J. C. Alvarado, Victor Ramdin, Fabian Ortiz, Leo Fernandez, Veronica Dabul, Christian De Leon, Maria ‘maridu’ Mayrinck, Gualter Salles, and Max and Maria Stern.

To give you some idea of how crazy the day was…none of the people listed above have any chips.

Raymer winces as the river spells his doom

Only 36 people will walk away with money. At this point, the most likely person to see a decent chunk of that money is Canada’s Oliver Rowe. The PokerStars qualifier made a late surge tonight to 136,000, good for the chip lead going into Day 2. The twenty-six year old from Vancouver plays poker for a living. His recent live tournament experience includes the World Series Main Event and a stop on the APPT.

Oliver Rowe

Spain’s Alberto Font went on a huge tear after the dinner break tonight and finished just behind Rowe with 135,000. To date, Font’s biggest cashes come from a 441st place finish at the World Series and a final table in a side event at the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Now, he’s among the top ten in chips.

Alberto Font

PokerStars qualifier Ron Wasiel spent a good portion of the night near the top of the leaderboard.The painter from the ‘burbs of Chicago is only playing his second big live event of his life. Normally a $10 re-buy player on PokerStars, Wasiel qualified for this event through a $10 3x chance event on PokerStars.

Ron Wasiel

For a look at some selected stacks from the field, be sure to see our LAPT Punta del Este chip counts page. Once we have the official counts from the tournament staff, we’ll post them in the same place.

To get a look at what the final 36 players will get paid, see the LAPT Punta del Este prizes and winners page.

If you’ve failed to notice by this point, we’ve been posting a ton of great videos from the PokerStars Video Blog team. You can go back and take a look at those at PokerStars.tv.

Finally, if you’d like to look back at all the coverage from the day (and we really hope you do), click on any of the links below.

In the meantime, we’re headed to bed where we plan to dream of steak and a day where no chairs take flight. We’ll be back here at noon local time on Thursday.

Monte Carlo in South America
Three days in the sunshine
There was a party?
A star-studded field in the Southern Hemisphere
Our kingdom for a cattle prod
Your turn, honey
Day 1 thrugh a lens
Speed in a can
The fall and rise of Victor Ramdin
The Back 40
Multiple accounting
Phillips down (speed kills?)
A million in play
A long way from Uppsala
Song of the serial satellite winner
Farewell to the FossilMan
Steak in the air
Ramdin speaks
Where we stand
The quiet man
Painting the town yellow
Ramdin, Akkari eliminated in one-two punch
Hard to read Font
The Silent Assassin

All photography © Joe Giron/IMPDI

*We actually have no record of any wise men ever saying this. We feel pretty confident somebody said it at some point, and chances are he was pretty smart.

Natural growth is one thing, as it is relatively easy to increase customer base with a growing market. But to grow a business exponentially, due to outstanding customer service and promotions, is what Everest Poker has done over the past few years.

Alex Fitzgerald had a rough go of it at the EPT Dortmund. On an A-J-5-A-4 board, he flopped top pair and turned trips, value betting his A-Q beautifully on each street and getting called down each time. The only problem was, his opponent turned up 4-4 on the river and dealt the 21-year old Seattle native a crushing blow. Even worse than that, he got his money in with A-A against 9-7 only to watch the board run out Q-J-T-9-7, eliminating him from the tournament. So it’s fair to say that Fitzgerald doesn’t exactly harbor loving memories of the Motherland.

Only a few days later, he was on a plane to Montevideo, hoping to turn things around here in Uruguay.

Alex “Assassinato” Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, known online as “Assassinato,” has been traveling the world almost nonstop for the last couple of years after quitting his day job at age 18 to play full-time. In Season 1 of the LAPT, he missed the final table in Rio de Janiero by only two spots, finishing 11th. What he lacks in live finishes he’s more than made up for online, regularly crushing high buy-in tournaments on PokerStars. Fitzgerald finished fifth in the Sunday Million last September for a $54,000 score, won the Nightly Hundred Grand in December, and has final tabled the $109 Rebuy at least three times.

A picture of quiet strength at the table, Fitzgerald has been steadily amassing a stack all day, carefully choosing his spots and applying pressure the moment he senses weakness. Faced with a middle position limper and a call from the small blind, Fitzgerald checked his option and saw a flop of Ah-6h-4s. The small blind checked, Fitzgerald rapped the table, and the middle position player quickly tossed out a 3,000 bet. Maybe too quickly. It was enough to chase away the small blind, but after a moment’s consideration, Fitzgerald slid out one of his stacks of yellow chips, making a raise to 20,000. His opponent couldn’t fold quickly enough and Fitzgerald picked up the pot, increasing his already-formidable stack to over 50,000.

Fitzgerald ultimately hopes to retire from poker and pursue a career as a writer. But perhaps a victory here might change his mind.

If he would take off his shiny shades, Alberto Font might be easier to read. Maybe he knows this, because it’s rare to see him without them.

We first spotted the Spaniard this year at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure when he final tabled a side event and picked up nearly $35,000. Before that, his biggest live finish was $27,020 for a 441st finish at the 2007 World Series.

Tonight, the ever-quiet player is making some noise without saying a word. At this late hour, Font has taken his stack to the 140,000 range. That’s good for the chip lead with a level and half to go.

With 90 minutes left to play tonight, a few more than 80 of the original 327 players remain. There is no chance of making the money (top 36) tonight, but we stand a good chance of only having seven tables left at the end of the night.

Some of the bigger names left in action tonight include Alex Brenes, Jose Rosenkrantz, and Christian Kruel.

We’re now out in search of anyone who may be creeping up on Font’s stack. Back in just a bit.

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.