RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Oct. 9, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After the overwhelming success of the PokerStars Latin American Poker Tour Season 1, PokerStars.net has announced LAPT Season 2 -- opening with the San Jose event running November 3-5, 2008 at the Ramada Plaza, Herradura Conference Centre in San Jose, Costa Rica.
The San Jose event has a buy-in of $3,700 with a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million, which is an increase of almost $35,000 over last year's event. The buy-ins for all LAPT events have been raised to $3,500 + $200 with the LAPT Championship event boasting a greater $5,000 + $200 buy-in.
Last year's San Jose tournament attracted a field of 398 players, with PokerStars qualifier Valdemar Kwaysser winning the title and taking home the $274,103 first prize. Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu, Isabelle Mercier, Andre Akkari, and Costa Rican poker legend, Humberto Brenes all took part. This year's event looks set to attract some of the world's top pros, and players have the chance to play alongside them by qualifying online at PokerStars.
LAPT Season 1 attracted well over a thousand players over three events and Season 2 promises to be considerably bigger with three further events added to the tour, which means a total of six countries: Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina.
"PokerStars LAPT Season One was defined by ground-breaking debut success. Season Two will be defined by growth and expansion as we fully spread the tour across Latin America," stated LAPT President Glenn Cademartori. "We were so overwhelmed with the success of LAPT Season 1, that we wanted to come back with Season 2 straight away, moving it into the high-season for Latin American tourism.
"It will be the best time for Latin Americans, as well as North Americans, Europeans and players from across the globe to travel to these exotic destinations for live high-stakes championship poker. We are quickly doubling the size of the LAPT by adding Mexico, Chile and Argentina to the schedule. Players have a lot to look forward to in Season 2, which will run from November to April -- six countries in six months," he enthusiastically added.
PokerStars LAPT San Jose satellites are available daily at PokerStars. Players have the chance to win a prize package including a main event buy-in, 4 nights' hotel accommodation and money for expenses. Please visit http://www.lapt.com/ for more information, updates on the tour dates and how to qualify.
About PokerStars:
PokerStars is the world's largest online poker room (with 15 million players worldwide) and also the #1 poker tournament site. As the premier destination for the top players -- with over 100,000 tournaments running every day -- PokerStars is renowned for offering the best software and security in the online poker world. PokerStars:
* Has dealt over 20 billion hands
* Has run more than 100 million poker tournaments
* Entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first and only poker website to reach the 160,000 simultaneous players mark
PokerStars is the official sponsor of: The European Poker Tour (www.ept.com), PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Latin American Poker Tour (www.lapt.com), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (www.appt.com) and The World Cup of Poker.
PokerStars is the home of Team PokerStars Pro, a group of 30 veteran and up-and-coming players from around the world who play online at PokerStars and are sponsored by the site in international tournaments around the world. For more information please visit www.pokerstars.net.
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