Latin American Poker Tour Announced, Begins May 3 in Brazil

Poker pro Humberto Brenes will now be able to play a major poker tournament in his home country of Costa Rica. (Bodog Beat Image)

Hey, another poker tour! This is exactly what we need, more tournament updates to try and keep track of.

The newly announced Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) kicks off in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 3, 2008. This three-day $2,500 tournament will be the largest poker tournament ever held in Brazil, with players competing for an expected total prize pool of over $600,000.

The tour continues with the LAPT San José in Costa Rica from May 22-24, and then moves on to Uruguay for the LAPT Punta del Este from August 7-9.

"Poker is exploding in Latin America and the game is more than ready for its own major poker tour," said LAPT President Glenn Cademartori. "It’s one of the fastest-growing poker regions, and there are thousands upon thousands of players in countries like Brazil and Argentina who will love the chance to take part in events of this kind."

We hate to point out the obvious, but they haven't announced a tour stop in Argentina, so they're not doing a very good job of catering to the "thousands upon thousands" of players in Argentina. We're not sayin', we're just sayin'.

Anyway, the LAPT joins the other litany of poker tours that have sprung up in recent years including the European Poker Tour (EPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), the all-encompassing World Poker Tour (WPT, which ironically now goes to fewer countries than the regional tours), WSOP Circuit and smaller tours that travel around the US like the Heartland Poker Tour, Denver Poker Tour, World Tavern Poker Tour and many, many, many many, many, many others. "Poker tour," the phrase has lost all meaning to us.

Since the Bodog "Player's Choice" Package provides a $12,000 prize, including a seat to any land-based poker tournament with a $10,000 or less buy-in, the new $2,500 buy-in LAPT events would definitely fall under that category. So, head over to the Bodog Poker room and qualify online for the LAPT.