Another notable face in the room in former professional footballer Paulo Rink. Rink may not be as well known for his prowess on the felt compared to the pitch just yet, but he's slowly building up his poker record. Last season on the Latin American Poker Tour, Rink ran deep in the R$2,500 LAPT Brazil Main Event with a 29th-place finish for R$9,750 (USD $5,547). He also made an amazing run in the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $10,000 Main Event. Out of the field of 1,560, Rink placed 27th for $66,000.
Rink is a retired Brazilian-born German football (or soccer for us Americans) forward who gave up professional play in 2007.
Atletico Paranaense of the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A league was the club where Rink got his start before moving to the German team Bayer Leverkusen. He was transferred to the team for the hefty sum of $6 million USD, which up until that point, no one had been transferred from Atletico Paranaense for that sum of money.
Although he spent four years from 1997-2001, scoring 29 goals with Bayer Leverkusen in 88 appearances, Rink played for numerous other clubs. Nuremberg, Energie Cottbus, Olympiakos Nicosia, Vitesse, Jeonbuk, Olympiakos Nicosia, Omonia Nicosia and Atletico-PR were all stints for him following Bayer Leverkusen. Out of that latter group, Rink made the most appearances with Olympiakos Nicosia (21) and scored the most goals with Omonia Nicosia (23).
Outside of club play, Rink earned 13 international caps between 1998 and 2000 with the German national team. Rink was a naturalized German citizen due to his great-grandfather emigrating from Germany to Brazil in 1904, and became the first Brazilian to play for Germany. Although he didn't score any goals with that team, Rink has 98 career goals on his resume.
It is said that Rink can't even walk the streets of Germany without being mauled by fans. That's not the case quite yet here within the poker world, but a big win here LAPT Sao Paulo could surely change all that.
Today's tournament is being held in a convention center ballroom at the World Trade Center Sheraton. 51 tables are packed into the ballroom, all of which are in use. Another four tables have been placed in the hallway outside the ballroom in an effort to accommodate everyone who wants to play. Given the impressive field, all tables are starting ten-handed.
It's also going to take a while to comb through the tables to figure out who's here. We've already spotted all four members of Team PokerStars Brazil: Alexandre Gomes, Andre Akkari, Maria Mayrinck and Gualter Salles. Also in the room are Mexican pros Angel Guillen and Christian de Leon (who somehow managed to draw the same starting table), Costa Rican pro Humberto Brenes, and the "first couple" of poker, Max and Maria Stern. They are the only couple in the history of the World Series of Poker to both win bracelets. Maria won hers in a $1,500 Seven-Card Stud event in 1997; Max has three bracelets, one each in Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud Hi/Lo, and No-Limit Hold'em. Maria also made one LAPT final table, finishing in 8th place at the 2008 LAPT Costa Rica Main Event.
Season 4 of the PokerStars.net Latin American Poker Tour is starts this morning in fabulous São Paulo, Brazil. Players from all over South America and the world have convened at the World Trade Center Sheraton in the heart of this thriving Brazilian city -- the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, with a population of approximately 11 million -- for some high-stakes poker action. Tournament officials have already notified us that they expect this tournament field to be the biggest in the history of the LAPT.
The heavens opened yesterday afternoon, creating some serious flooding problems around the city, but today the sun is shining bright. Nobody will have an opportunity to sleep off a hangover from last night's banging welcome party at the Museum nightclub, where the caipirinhas were flowing very late into the night. All of the players in this tournament will start in a single, giant Day 1 field today. They're looking at six full levels of play before a 75-minute dinner break, and then another four levels of post-dinner play (structure sheet). The chip bags won't be out until around midnight.
Between now and then there will be plenty of action on which to report. Cards will be in the air in about 15 minutes, so stick around.
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