February 20 2012, Eric Ramsey

Season 4 of the PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour concluded this week with Daniele Nestola taking home the title. The timing for the Grand Final in Brazil could not have been better. In a country that needs no excuse for a party, there’s no better excuse for a party than Carnival, and it arrived alongside the Grand Final in full confetti and papier-mache regalia. It’s the biggest week of the year on the Brazilian calendar, and it came paired with the nation’s most prestigious poker tournament. A total of 367 players paid 4,000 reais apiece for a ticket to LAPT São Paulo, and the four-day event culminated in Monday’s final table.

The marriage of poker and party brought notables from as far away as Canada and Northern Europe, and the temptations were even enough to lure Daniel Negreanu to play. His influence has spread far south of the equator, and his presence alone put a notable mark on Brazilian poker. Luckily enough for fans gathered ringside, Negreanu was chatty and playing mostly fantastic poker, and he picked his way all the way through the field and into the final eight.

Daniele Nestola began the final table as the big stack and wasted no time wielding that in a pot that ended the run of Argentina’s Juan Gonzalez. They were playing 12,000/24,000/3,000 when there was a raise and a flat-call in front of Nestola’s small blind and decided to squeeze in a reraise from 54,000 to 148,000. In the big blind, Gonzalez four-bet shoved for 549,000 holding . The other two players folded out of the way, but Nestola called with , and the race was on. The board ran , and the early quads were the first sign that the day would belong to Nestola. Gonzalez was the first player to fall in his wake, earning R$26,340 for eighth place.

The final Brazilian fell in seventh place when Vitor Torres lost the last of his chips. He’s an imposing man at the table, but his short stack found him shoving into Felipe Morbiducci’s . The flop was not at all good news for the native and was awarded R$35,560 as he left the stage to a warm ovation.

Negreanu was down in the realm of 20 to 25 big blinds as the blinds went up in the second level of the day and made it clear that he was playing for the win. Unfortunately, his first bid for a double went afoul at the hands of Carlos Ibarra. Negreanu was the preflop raiser, and Ibarra called in late position to go heads-up to the flop. When it came , Negreanu continued out for 102,000. Ibarra wanted to play for 300,000 though, and his raise effectively put “Kid Poker” to a decision for all his chips. Negreanu had 575,000 left behind, and he chatted up Ibarra a bit before committing with . Ibarra had been working with though, and Negreanu was two cards from the exit. The turn and river were no use, and Negreanu’s sixth-place consolation prize was R$48,730.

That put Ibarra within striking distance of Nestola’s chip-leading stack, and the two men traded spots a couple of times before Nestola really began to turn the screws. He found the same Ibarra had used to tally a knockout of his own, and it earned him the bounty of Ecuador’s Jonathan Markovits. The latter stuck his short stack in with the respectable , but he could not overcome Nestola’s rockets, leaving in fifth place with R$64,540.

Morbiducci, from Chile, was the next to run aground at Nestola’s expense when the two got it in with and respectively. Morbiducci had his tournament momentarily extended by the flop, but the turn drew Nestola right back into the lead. The river was the , and the blank sent the first of two Chileans off to the exit in fourth place with R$89,570.

Gaspernio Nicolas had been biding his time as the price of poker had been growing, and he really began to mount a charge during three-handed play. He overtook Nestola briefly, but his time at the top was short-lived. Nestola once again found those friendly in a big pot against Nicolas, and the Nestola’s chip lead began to grow once again as he knocked his opponent down a notch.

Nicolas managed to take care of Ibarra, the other Chilean, in third place, but he was still facing an uphill battle. Ibarra’s elimination came when he bluff-shoved his short stack with on a flop. Nicolas’ was good enough to send him on his way, and he earned the first six-figure payout with a check for R$148,840 and a respectable third-place result.

Nestola and Nicolas agreed to chop R$500,000 of the remaining prize pool in half and play for the remaining R$39,300, and it didn’t take long at all for Nestola to claim that remainder and the trophy. The heads-up battle was short and lopsided, and it was a seemingly innocent limped pot that ended the day. Nicolas flopped top pair with on the , and Nestola called a bet with his drawing at the open-ender. The came right on fourth street, and the rest of the money got in right there. Nicolas was already drawing dead to the river, and he took a quarter-million Reais back home to Venezuela with him.

From start to finish, the whole tournament took just over four hours, and Nestola was likely headed out for a night of partying Carnival-style in the streets of São Paulo. He has 289,300 reasons to celebrate, and he was smiling broadly as he posed for his winner photo with the winning hand, the trophy, and all the chips.

2012 LAPT Grand Final São Paulo Results

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January 27 2012, Brett Collson

Is Phil Ivey destined to win the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event? If so, you can be sure the Crown Casino will have the high-roller craps tables ready for him. While several members of the PokerNews team are in Melbourne covering the finale of that event, we’re here to bring you the other big stories of the day, including a poker bot competition, Washington, D.C.’s debate over online gambling, and more.

In Case You Missed It

Phil Ivey advanced to Day 5 of the 2012 Aussie Millions Main Event on Friday, but he ended the day as the short stack. For details on the hand that got him there, check out our daily Aussie Millions recap.

How was the high-stakes action at the PokerStars tables this week? Read the Online Railbird Report to find out the week’s biggest winners and losers.

The World Series of Poker Circuit Caesars Main Event is under way in Las Vegas. PokerNews’ Chad Holloway previews the Main Event and breaks down the results from the preliminary events.

Miss anything this week? We’ve got you covered. Nicki Pickering gets you caught up on the latest news, views and gossip in the PokerNews Weekly.

Rise of the Machines

Students participating in an online poker course at MIT this semester will be competing in the MIT Pokerbots Competition next month. Teams of one to four students have been given one month to program a completely autonomous “pokerbot” to compete against other teams, with more than $30,000 in prizes up for grabs. Nearly 50 teams have already signed up for the computerized poker tournament, which is set for Monday, Feb. 6.

More than 200 students are taking the poker course, which is instructed by former online poker pro Will Ma (pictured above). The three-week seminar discusses mathematical strategies needed to be a long-term winner at no-limit hold’em tournaments. Students are evaluated by their performance in a PokerStars Home Game league (for play money, of course).

Ma is a former instructor at CardRunners, but he might be best known for his victory at the 2007 “10,000 Grand Prix De Paris Main Event for “422,560. He also has more than $1.7 million in online tournament earnings, much of which came under the name “CutiePi314″ at PokerStars.

More information about the Pokerbots Competition can be found at mitpokerbots.com.

Online Gambling on Hold in D.C.

The District of Columbia was the first U.S. jurisdiction to pass online gambling last April, but officials in the nation’s capital are still divided on whether the government should move forward with the venture.

Online gambling became legal in D.C. last year when a councilman inserted language into a budget bill that would allow poker and other games to be played on the Internet within the jurisdiction. A 30-day objection period ended without any obstruction from Congress, turning the bill into a law.

On Thursday, council member Jack Evans said at a public hearing that there is no rush to roll out an online gambling operation, even though D.C. lottery officials said they could potentially launch a website to offer a test run within 30 days. “Given where we are now, should we go back and revisit it or not? That’s what I’ll decide,” Evans said, according to an Associated Press report.

Nevada and D.C. remain the only jurisdictions to approve online gambling within their borders, but a repeal bill introduced last year by D.C. council member Tommy Wells could ultimately amend the law in the District. Other states, including Nevada, have hinted at the possibility of offering online gaming by the end of the year.

Read more at the Washington Post.

TCOOP Winding Down

The inaugural PokerStars Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) is hitting the homestretch as 35 of the 50 events were completed through Thursday. That left only 15 events on the slate heading into the weekend, including the $2,100 buy-in High Roller and $700 Main Event on Sunday.

Here’s a look at the results from Thursday:

Event #32: No Limit Hold’em 3x Turbo w/ Rebuys ($100K Guaranteed)

The smallest buy-in of the TCOOP saw nearly 17,000 players combine for around 70,000 rebuys and add-ons, creating a prize pool of $429,065. Team PokerStars Pro Alex Kravchenko exited short of the final table in 19th place, and Romania’s “i.love.ri” won the title outright for $50,196.

Event #33: Razz ($50K Guaranteed)

More than 2,000 players took part in the $33 razz event, which took less than four hours to complete. “Wintyara” won the title and biggest payout of $9,518 after a three-way deal at the final table.

Event #34: No Limit Hold’em 2x Chance ($400K Guaranteed)

The richest tournament of the day attracted 2,459 players to generate a prize pool of nearly $700,000. Germany’s “WorDN” won the tournament and just over $100,000 after a heads-up deal with Mexico’s “OBVAMENTS.”

Event #35: Pot Limit Omaha 4-Max ($25K Guaranteed)

Alex Kravchenko made his second deep run of the day in this one but again fell short of his first TCOOP title, finishing 26th. Austria’s “Sisnleicht?” went on to win the event for $17,804.

For more details on each event, check out the PokerStars Blog.

Online Poker Traffic Report

PokerScout.com released its online poker traffic rankings earlier this week. The tracking site reported an overall drop of 2 percent as seven of the top 10 sites saw declines from the previous week.

The Merge Gaming Network took a 10 percent hit after its $1 million bad-beat jackpot hit last week. Still, Merge is dominating the rest of its competition in the U.S. market. PokerScout reports that since Bodog introduced anonymous tables last month, the site has lost 5 percent of its traffic. In that same time frame, the Merge Gaming Network has gained 14 percent and the Cake Poker Network is up 5 percent. Bodog also renamed its U.S.-facing business to Bovada late last month.

As for year-over-year numbers, PokerScout’s ACES indicator reports that online poker traffic (with the exception of Italy) decreased by 32 percent in the past year. Full Tilt Poker and the CEREUS Network can be blamed mostly for that number, but the Entraction Network (down 52 percent) and the International Poker Network (down 47 percent) have seen significant drops since last year. The biggest climbers since January 2011 are the Merge Network (up 82 percent), 888poker (up 69 percent) and Bodog (up 45 percent).

Read the full report at PokerScout.com.

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