PCA 2014: Brazil and Argentina out as Chile crush Americas Cup on Day 1

They came in with high hopes. They'll leave with a guaranteed $5,000. But it could have been so much more.

Brazil and Argentina are out of this year's Americas Cup of Poker, despite the best efforts of their respective team captains, Andre Akkari and Nacho Barbero. The fast format and Sit & Go structure meant that labelling anyone as "favorites" going into today would have been a foolish gesture, but even so, with two LAPT final tablists in Ivan Raich and Javier Gordo, many had singled out Argentina as this year's team to beat -- including Barbero.

But all is not lost. They'll go into tomorrow's fifth place play-off with Team Brazil hoping to lock up an extra $2,500 in prize money.

One team with loftier ambitions tomorrow will be that of Chile, who with a little help from one of the event's three female players, put on the day's strongest showing to edge out Peru by a single point at the summit.

The win means Chile will go into tomorrow's decisive heads-up battles as top seed, where they'll play fourth placed Colombia. That leaves Mexico (third) to scrap it out with Peru (second) in the day's other match-up.

Each team will play five heads-up matches against the other. The first to win three will advance to the semi-finals, and then final, where the juicy $32,500 first prize will be dished out. Until then, see below for the full pay out structure and more photos from a noisy day in The the Bahamas.

Americas Cup of Poker
Date: January 11-12, 2014
Entries: Six teams
Prize pool: $100,000
1st: $32,500
2nd: $25,000
3rd: $17,500
4th: $12,500
5th: $7,500
6th: $5,000

OUT: Brazil and Argentina

Humberto Brenes and Amos Ben hug it out

A lonely Arieb Ortega finds himself in a Colombian huddle

Celebrations a plenty for the guys in the yellow and white of Colombia

Akkari and Team Brazil during happier times

Team Chile get some pre-match tactics on the go

The full 2014 Americas Cup of Poker cast

Team Peru and their adopted Costa Rican coach, Humberto Brenes

Team Mexico outside the Ballroom

Team Argentina before it hitting the rail at least $5,000 richer

Team Chile, today's leaders

Stay tuned to the PokerStars Blog for more from the Americas Cup and don't forget to click through to live updates, features and interviews from the $10,000,000 guaranteed PCA Main Event.

The yellow, blue and red of Colombia show their colors

Keir Mackay is a copywriter for PokerStars.

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Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Americas Cup]