Day 1 Wrapped in Rosario; PKaiser Way Out in Front

This afternoon, 254 players flooded into the plush ballroom at the City Center Casino in Rosario, Argentina to kick off the final stop of the Latin American Poker Tour's third season. After eight levels, close to 130 hopefuls remain. Chilean online hotshot Nicolas "PKaiser" Fierro ended the night with a stack large enough to dwarf his competition.

With 30 minutes left in the day, Brazilian Hugo Franca was the chip leader by a large margin. Then he tried to bluff-shove Fierro off of the stone nuts, which went rather poorly for him. A few minutes after that, Franca donated another sizable chunk of his stack to Fierro. PKaiser ended the night with 278,200, making him the undisputed chip leader. Mario Niciforo with 130,000 and Arnaldo Mesas with 116,600 are also at the top of the list, though their chip bags seem small in comparison to Fierro's.

Pros Terrance Chan, Dennis Phillips, Maria Mayrinck, and Damian Salas will all be back for Day 2 as well. Several other big names weren't as lucky. Chris Moneymaker was among the day's earliest casualties. Fellow Team PokerStars Pros Alexandre Gomes, Gualter Salles and Victor Ramdin also hit the rail during the day.

Day 2 action begins at 12:00 local time on Friday. Keep your browsers pointed at PokerNews for all the latest.