Opened 24 hours a day the multi floor Atlantic City Casino is one of the largest and nicest casinos in town with a gaming area of around 3000 m2. The entertainment and convention center houses some 1000 slots and video gaming machines and over 50 table games incl. A comfortable poker room. In my research, I read that Atlantic City's poker room is, by far, the most popular in Lima so I only visited that casino, an easy 1/2 mile walk from my apartment. The poker room is on the second floor of the casino, easily found from the main entrance. The entire casino is non-smoking (nice!).

Another long day of poker is done here at the Atlantic City Casino in Lima, and after a busy final level of play Carlos Mora of Mexico nudged out in front of everyone to bag the most chips among the Day 1B players. Mora's stack of 183,500 outpaced the 143 players who made it to night's end, although still sits behind Day 1A chip leader Henry Zapana's 199,000.

With today's second and final Day 1 flight, there were a number who busted on Wednesday coming back for a second helping today, while a huge influx of newcomers further boosted the numbers as the afternoon wore on.

In the end there were well over 400 entries on Day 1B, carrying the overal total for the LAPT7 Peru Main Event to 692 entries total to create a $1,040,420 prize pool. Both marks smashed records for the LAPT in Lima, making for a truly grand Grand Final.

Such numbers pleased those running the show, including Tournament Director Thomas Lamatsch, borrowed for the week by the LAPT from the European Poker Tour. Lamatsch is greatly enjoying his first visit to Peru, discovering as do many first-timers how accommodating a place Lima can be.

Lima Peru City Tour

Turning our attention to the play, we spoke with WCOOP champion Francisco 'chiconogue' Nogueira early on, then checked in on the many former LAPT champions taking part today.

As play continued Rafael Porzecanski, Jose 'El Presidente' Santos, and Ariel Celestino were among those building big stacks before the dinner break arrived, positioning themselves well to continue the goal of everyone to enjoy a sweet October miracle come Sunday.

We looked in on the four red spades in action today, all of whom were still with chips during the night's final levels. Team PokerStars Pros Leo Fernandez (41,300) and Christian de Leon (24,000) survived the night, while Andre Akkari did not, the latter felted when his K♥Q♥ failed to catch up to the A♠Q♣ of Juan Diego Marzano.

Meanwhile Team PokerStars Pro Online member Jorge 'Baalim' Limon finished strong to bag up 73,100.

Speaking of Team Online Pros, the day was also marked by the welcoming of the newest member of the team, Argentina's Celeste 'LadyMaCe86' Orona. After making it through Day 1A, Orona will be back tomorrow as one of the 90 survivors from yesterday.

Less fortunate today were Rafael Pardo, Calvin Anderson, and Victor Sbrissa. Sbrissa tried three times today without making it to night's end, his last elimination coming after running K♠K♦ into Marcelo Liro's A♠A♦.

Other big stacks among the Day 1B finishers included Cesar Lopez who collected a handsome 163,400.

Also ending well were Fernando Takemura (163,100), Rodrigo Garrido (146,300), Romeo Paludo (124,300), and Thiago Nishijima (110,900).

There's still a long way to go for everyone, however, with 233 players coming back at noon tomorrow for Day 2 as the Grand Final continues. Click here for a full list of the 143 survivors of Day 1B, and click here for the combined list of 233 players who have advanced to Day 2.

Lima Peru City Map

Thanks for following our coverage today from Lima, and see you back here again mañana.

Hotels In Lima Peru

Photography from LAPT7 Peru by Carlos Monti. Check out the start-to-finish live streaming coverage (in both Spanish and Portuguese) at PokerStars.tv. Click here for live updates in Spanish, and here for live updates in Portuguese.

Atlantic City Casino Lima Peru

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.