The Latin American Poker Tour, sponsored by PokerStars, recently made a three-day stop at Medellin’s Allegre Casino for LAPT Colombia. Julian Menendez emerged from a field of 681 competitors to win the Main Event, winning nearly $65k along with the title. Despite being an inaugural event, LAPT Colombia attracted more players to its Main Event than any LAPT event in history.
The field was so large that Day 3 began with 28 remaining players as opposed to the usual final table only. Although the Day 3 field was dominated by South Americans (and particularly Colombians), players from Australia and the United States made appearances as well.
The eliminations came fast and furious as soon as play started for the day, with heavy blinds and antes blasting away at the lesser chip stacks. Players landing in places 28th through 10th received payouts ranging from $2.5k to almost $10k.
Menendez was a long-shot for LAPT glory when the final table began, as his stack of 735k chips paled in comparison to those of Alexis Gomez (910k), Jonathan Markovitz (1.15m), Stuart McDonald (1.235m), Victor Forero (2.045m) and especially Jonathan Monsalves (2.495m).
Jhon Jairo was booted in 9th place by Alexis Gomez, who held pocket aces. Markovitz was next to go when his suited J-8 failed to improve against the pocket kings of McDonald. Gomez then knocked out Rafael Pardo in 7th place.
The six remaining players then struck a deal in which each would receive a large chunk of the prize pool in accordance with their chip counts at the time. As fate would have it, the deal worked out amazingly for Stuart McDonald, and not nearly as well for eventual winner Menendez. Only an additional $14k would be reserved for 1st place.
McDonald had the most chips at the time of the deal, so he received over $87k. He was knocked out immediately after the deal from some overly-aggressive play. It’s certainly unusual to see the 6th-place finisher in a major tournament receive about 35% more money than the outright winner.
Had it not been for the deal, McDonald would have received $27k, while Menendez would’ve cashed for over $151k.
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