February 19 2011, Dave Behr

Chile’s Alex Manzano turned into a set-flopping machine at the end of Day 2 of the 2011 PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour São Paulo Main Event to seize the overnight chip lead. His 1,189,000 in chips will lead the remaining field of 24 players when they return for Day 3 on Saturday.

Manzano played well in the early and middle stages of play, using selective aggression to steadily chip up. Then his run-good kicked into overdrive, as he flopped sets in rapid succession to eliminate three players. First off the plank was Alexis Zervos, against whom Manzano flopped top set and then faded a flush draw. Zervos was soon joined on the rail by Neuri Jose Campos, who got it in pre-flop with ace-king against Manzano’s pocket queens (set on the flop for Manzano). Finally, in perhaps the run-best of them all, João Torres got it all in for about 500,000 preflop with pocket kings against Manzano’s pocket fours. A four on the flop meant all smiles for Manzano.

Although Manzano is at the head of the class with 1,189,000 in chips, he has a few excellent competitors barely trailing him who also played great poker on Day 2. The aforementioned João Bauer is next in line with 1,089,000 in chips, thanks in no small part to a pot worth about 800,000 chips in which his pocket kings out-flopped Marcelo Andrade’s pocket aces, all in preflop. Bauer used that bit of luck to then apply maximum pressure to his table for the remainder of the day.

Right behind Bauer is Day 1 chip leader Leandro Csome. Csome put on a big-stack clinic on the bubble of the tournament by constantly putting his shorter-stacked competitors to the test for all of their chips. He raised preflop. He re-raised preflop. He bet, raised and reraised on the flop. He almost never slowed down while the rest of his table waited for the bubble to burst. Csome flirted with 1,000,000 in chips late in the day before ultimately settling at 959,000.

Rounding out the top five are Bruno Foster (766,000) and Amos Ben Haim (687,000). Also still alive and returning tomorrow are Team PokerStars Pro (Costa Rica) Humberto Brenes (601,000) and Daniela Zapiello (235,000), a previous LAPT final tablist and the only woman remaining in the field.

On Saturday the remaining 24 players will return at 1:00 PM local time to play down to a final table of eight. The top prize is worth R$615,840 and everyone remaining has locked up at least R$14,350. Be sure to check out the Day 3 table and seat draw in order to find the positions and stacks of every player left in the field. As always, you can find all of the live updates on PokerNews.

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