The LAPT Season 8 Grand Final took place in the Brazilian city of São Paulo as part of the BSOP Millions’ schedule. The major R$10,000 event took five days to be completed and last night, Brazilian Yuri Martins bested its field of 426 entries. The player collected the amount of R$652,509 ($170,000) for his first place, after a two-way deal with his heads-up opponent Afonso Henrique.
The LAPT Season 8 Grand Final kicked off on November 25. The event featured three starting flights and three more days of play. Day 4, or the tournament’s final one, saw eight players returning to play down to a champion. Eight-handed action started with Henrique as the chip leader. The player had a total of 2,885,000 in chips. Martins was third in chips at the beginning of the day with 2,710,000.
No eliminations occurred during the first two hours of play. After that, the short stacks gradually started falling one by one.
Brazilian Gustavo Lopes was the first to go. He was eliminated in 8th place for R$85,730. Bruno Kawauti from Brazil hit the rail next. He took home the amount of R$120,700 for his 7th place in the event. Carlos Alves from Brazil finished 6th for R$160,540.
Alexandre Rivero from Brazil took 5th place for R$204,940. Ricardo Chauriye from Chile received R$261,340 for finishing 4th in the event. Andrés Herrera from Chile took 3rd place for a payout of R$329,030.
Heads-up play started with Martins as the chip leader holding two times more chips than his opponent Henrique. The latter managed to narrow the gap at some point and the two players made a two-way deal to split the remaining money, leaving R$118,638 for the eventual champion.
On what turned out to be the last hand in play, Henrique shoved all in and his opponent called. Martins tabled [Kd][Qh] against Henrique’s [Kc][9s]. The board ran out [5d][Qc][9h][7s][Kh], thus securing Martins with the title and the first-place prize. Henrique took home R$533,871 for his runner-up finish.
Prior to his victory last night, Martins’ live tournament winnings amounted to $352,095. What is more, the Brazilian can boast of more than $5 million in online earnings. The player could be spotted mainly at the online poker tables of PokerStars under the screen name ‘theNERDguy’. Last year, Martins finished runner-up to Fedor Holz in the 2014 World Championship of Poker.
