LAPT Florianopolis: Day 2, Level 9 and 10 updates (Blinds 400-800, 100 ante)

2.20pm: Break and color up
Players are now on a 20 minute break. Also, the green chips will be colored up and taken out of play.

2.15pm: Braga-rights
Faced with a 3,000 raise from Alessandra Braga, Miguel Solano re-raised to 9,000. Braga responded by moving all-in for 49,000. Solano had around 80,000 and took a while before making the call.

Solano showed pocket queens and Braga turned over Ace King, big slick for the lady, and ladies for the big man.

No ace came on the flop, but there was a king. Braga took the lead and kept it, doubling up to just over 100,000.

Solano is down to 30,000 and is in need of some luck. "I haven't been able to hit anything all day," said Solano, "but that's ok. Most people who win tournaments are shortstacked at one point or another."

Miguel Solano

2.10pm: The scores
Chip leader half way through level 10 remains Matthias Habernig who still has the 135,000 he arrived with. Felipe Ramos has 107,000 while David Bortnik has moved up the list a little to 130,000.

In pursuit, Felipe Ramos

2.05pm: Bye bye Bybee, Bybee goodbye
The one dollar Ross Bybee adventure is over. After a touch couple of levels Bybee was down to just two big blinds and shoved with ace-ten, only to run into ace-king. An ace on the flop kept things as they were but the king on the turn meant curtains for Bybee. He's off now to enjoy some well earned sunshine.

2pm: 0-60 in a Bruno GT
Bruno Gonzalez Terra is having the proverbial roller-coaster of a day. He returned today with around 60,000 before he plummeted to 9,000. He just doubled up though, bringing his stack back up to the 27,000 level.

1.45pm: Glass shattering action
At feature tables, we usually see people's dreams of winning a main event shattered. Today, that happened to Luiz Noal Neto and a number of unfortunate glassware.

Luiz Noal Neto and Gonzalo Antonio De Alzaga found themselves all-in preflop. De Alzago had Neto dominated in chips and in cards. Neto had A♦Q♦, trailing behind De Alzago's A♣K♦. In his excitement, De Alzaga screamed, "Vamos Peru" and jumped out of his chair.

In doing so, he tipped over a couple of glasses of water. They fell and shattered all over the stage. A couple of Brazilian workers scurried to clean up the mess. They were done before the flop was dealt.

The board 4♥T♥2♥6♠2♣, with De Alzaga screaming, "Vamos Peru!" in between every card. Neto was eliminated and, just like the poor shattered glasses, his time at the feature table was over.

"Everyone who's on this side of the table has been busting out," said Stephano Lopez. He was in the one seat and his closest player was now in the four seat. "By the looks of things I'll be the next one out," laughed Lopez.

While he seems to be in good condition with a stack of around 60,000, we'll keep on eye on him to see if his prediction comes true.

1.35pm: Housekeeping
For those interested in how long you'll be needing to press F5 today, tournament officials say we'll be playing down to 24 players, three tables, tonight.

1.30pm: Dabul on a charge
Veronica Dabul just enjoyed the luck of the river. She was all-in with pocket tens against pocket kings, only to catch a ten on fifth street, reviving her stack to around the 40k mark.

1.20pm: Level up
Blinds up and we're into level ten with 500-1,000 and a 100 ante.

1.10pm: Franked
Dan Frank (who last was among the volatile and nerve-wracked crowd in the resort bar watching the Sao Paulo vs Internacional South American Cup match), just busted, in consolation outlasting the friends he flew down to Brazil with. He now joins the likes of Joe Cada and Victor Ramdin on the rail.

1pm: Viva Vega
Stefano Vega, who played on the Latin American team at the America's Cup of Poker, just eliminated Norbert Ludger of Uruguay. With Ludger all-in Vega held J♣J♠ to Ludger's A♥K♠ on a board of J♦3♣6♠4♣A♣. Ludger gone.

The tournament room in Florianopolis

12.50pm: Good things come in threes
Yesterday, we brought you the story of Ross Bybee, the Micromania qualifier who's in Florianopolis on mere pennies. Well, 110 pennies to be exact. While Bybee is the only person here on a dollar, there's someone else who only had to shell out $15.

Maurice Simard's journey to Florianopolis began in a $5 rebuy qualifier on PokerStars. He only had to rebuy twice (a total of three buy-ins) to win his seat to the $215 qualifier. There, his luck continued and he won his seat to Florianopolis.

"And it was still too expensive," joked Simard.

Winning this tournament will be the third and final step to Simard's LAPT journey. Lucky for him, things are looking better after his recent triple up.

Preflop, Simard was faced with a 2,000 raise and 6,000 re-raise. He moved all in for his remaining 11,000 and both players called.

Simard showed J♦J♥, ahead of one opponents pair of nines, and flipping against the other players A♥K♦.

The board fell 4♣T♦T♥7♣2♦, bringing only good news to Simard. He now, interestingly enough, has a stack of around 33,000. Simard also has a jersey with the number 9 on it. Our adept math readers might notice that 3x3=9.

Coincidence? Probably.

$15 qualifier Maurice Simard

12.40pm: Delight and disappointment
A double up and a little dance for Carolina De Medeiros Costa whose jewellery sparkled as she celebrated. She's back up to 16,000. Elsewhere Benjamin Raffiani moved all in with pocket eights, only to be called by Maxel Santos with pocket tens. A third ten on the flop sent Raffiani to the rail.

12.25pm: Early casualties
With ten minutes played we've already lost six players.

12.15pm: Cards are in the air!
Dealers have just been told to shuffle up and deal in three different languages. Day 2 of LAPT Florianopolis is now underway.

12.05pm: All present and correct
Players are here and the familiar noise of riffled chips fills the air but no sign of a start just yet. Should be minutes away.

12pm: An introduction using moving pictures

11.40am: Food glorious food
Happiest man in the room right now is Sergio Prado. Our Brazilian blogger made it to breakfast this morning having missed it yesterday. That wouldn't have been much of an issue had he made it to dinner last night. He missed that out of loyalty to his friend Andre Akkari who asked him to wait until he'd busted from the turbo event so they could eat together.

Akkari won the event but not until past midnight. That bad food run changed this morning when Sergio gorged himself on pão de queijo (cheese bread).

11.20am: Welcome Back
Dealers are here, chips are here, just waiting on the players.

Overall chip leader Matthias Habernig

PokerStars Blog reporting team in Florianopolis: (in order of cups of coffee consumed in Florianopolis): Stephen Bartley (8) and Alexander Villegas (1)