I'd probably be remiss if I didn't say a few words about the LAPT's new host venue in São Paulo, the Tivoli Hotel.
The last two years, the LAPT's Brazil event took place at the Sheraton World Trade Center here in town. The rooms there were luxurious, the tournament ballroom was spacious and the lobby bar... well, let's just say that there are a few nights at that bar that I don't remember very well. Or at all. Hopefully by now the video has either been deleted or lost.
Yet if there was one complaint about the previous venue, it might have been that there wasn't much in the way of nightlife in the surrounding area. No restaurants, no cafés, no bars or clubs. In order to find those things, players needed to range farther afield. For the Brazilians, that wasn't much of an issue. For the non-Brazilians, it was a challenge without a guide. The old venue was a touch more suited to business travelers than poker players.
This year, the venue is the Tivoli Hotel smack dab in the center of São Paulo. It may be even more luxuriant than the Sheraton, and it had the added benefit of being in a hip, thriving neighborhood just off of Avenida Paulista, the Champs-Élysées of Latin America.
Last night I took a short walk through the neighborhood in order to get the lay of the land. There were parks and bars, restaurants and cafes. The cafes seemed to favor a white tile interior, not exactly my first choice in gastronomic décor. To me they looked like they were a few urinal cakes short of a Catholic elementary school bathroom, but the patrons (and there were many) all seemed to enjoy the food and the beer and each other's company well enough. I wound up at a sushi bar, where my attempts to order sushi in Portuguese met with mixed results.
The Tivoli is the type of place that models come for photo shoots - four of the tall, leggy variety were being photographed in bikinis by the pool yesterday afternoon, to the delight of certain bloggers who will not be named in this space. It's also the type of place at which the doormen wear top hats and tails. The interior is modern and chic without being in your face about the type of moneyed clientele that frequent the place.
In short, the LAPT took the one minor blemish from the old venue and eradicated it with this year's venue. This year the tour has added a sketch artist who is wandering the tables, sketching out mugs in a few minutes with several strokes of a pen.
Brazil is one of the dominant countries in this region of the world and certainly one of the most vocal, passionate community of poker players in any region of the world. Its signature poker event is now taking place in a venue that matches that level of prestige.
There's even a bar here. But I'm sticking to my guns this year - if anyone asks me to play Liar's Dice for tequila shots, I'm taking a pass.
Dave Behr is a freelance contributor to the PokerStars Blog.
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