WPTDeepStacks Regular Mario Lopez Chats About the Atmosphere on the Tour

Mario Lopez (pictured) started playing in WPTDeepStacks events two and a half years ago, and in that time he has scored a handful of cashes and final-table appearances. Lopez took fourth place in the WPTDS Central California Main Event one year ago, and he also made the final table at WPTDS Tampa last season, where he cashed in sixth place. Lopez recently made his third WPTDS final table at the Reno stop in March when he took ninth place. In addition to those final tables, he also cashed in 29th place at the WPTDS Thunder Valley stop during Season 3. We caught up with Lopez earlier today, and he shared his thoughts about the atmosphere of the tour, his favorite stop, and he filled us in on his Day 1B as well.

WPTDeepStacks: How have the first three levels of the day played out for you?

Lopez: It actually started off really good, my first hand was pocket queens, and I won a nice little 5k pot that I picked up on the very first hand of the day. And then it went really bad, I just went card dead. I wasn’t picking up anything, but about 30 minutes ago I started picking up a little bit of momentum. I started picking up some hands.

WPTDeepStacks: Is there any hand in particular that changed the momentum for you?

Lopez: I opened with queen-jack of diamonds, and the flop came 8-9-10. I c-bet the flop and got a caller. The turn was an ace, which I thought was a great card, and sure enough the guy hit the ace and I made a pretty big oversized bet on the river and got paid off. That got a little bit of momentum moving.

WPTDeepStacks: You’re one of our WPTDeepStacks regulars. What is it that attracts you to play events on this tour?

Lopez: The structure mostly, I love the structure. You’re pretty deep-stacked whenever you register into the tournament, and so you get to actually sit back and play some cards. When you do go really card dead, which happens in these tournaments a lot, you can go an hour or two without picking up any hands, and the structure helps you out where you can just lay back and wait for it and pick and chose your spots well. Which is why I think I have had pretty good success in this event.

WPTDeepStacks: What is your favorite stop on the tour?

Lopez: Tampa, I went there and got lucky and final tabled that one too. It was a great place, and my family was able to be at the final table setup. So that was pretty cool to have my son there and stuff. I had never played in Florida, it was just a great experience.

WPTDeepStacks: How would you define the atmosphere on the WPTDeepStacks tour?

Lopez: It’s a great atmosphere, you can see that there’s a big range of people. It’s all great guys, and I seem to see a lot of the familiar faces everywhere I go. So you kind of get to know everybody and it feels pretty good.