EPT Barcelona 2018: Super High Roller Reaches Final Table, Day 1A of National High Roller Draws 1,053 Entries

The 2018 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona is well underway with five of its 34 events already crowning winners.

The weekend was a blockbuster for the series as not only were the €1,100 No Limit Hold’em – EPT National and €1,100 No Limit Hold’em – Hyper Turbo taken down by Jean-Pierre Fontaine and Michele Di Lauro respectively, the €100,000 No Limit Hold’em – Super High Roller and €2,200 No Limit Hold’em – EPT National High Roller also commenced.

The Super High Roller attracted 54 participants, following two days of play, the field was reduced to the nine-handed final table headed by Matthias Eibinger (3,040,000). While the first of the two starting flights of the National High Roller took off with a gigantic field of 1,053 runners, with only 158 making it to the end of day’s play, led by Marc MacDonnell and Jack Salter, both of whom built up a stack of 600,000 each.

€100,000 Super High Roller

With a buy-in of €100,000, the Super High Roller began on August 25 and will be held over a period of three days.

Day 1 Recap

A field of 44 players gathered on Day 1, out of whom only 28 runners made it to Day 2.

Several heavy weights were seen in action and made the cut for Day 2 including Mikita Badziakouski (402,000), Anthony Zinno (400,000), PokerStars Team Pro Daniel Negreanu (305,000), Stephen Chidwick (300,000), Dan Smith (291,000), Ivan Leow (260,000) and Sam Greenwood (247,000).

But many notables were railed along the way as well, such as Ali Reza Fatehi, Nick Petrangelo, Sergio Aido, Wai Leong Chan, and Luc Greenwood.

Ahadpur Khangah led the survivors of Day 1 into Day 2 with a massive chip lead of 1,155,000, and he was followed by Pascal LeFrancois (647,000) and David Peters (638,000) who were a distant second and third in stacks.

Top 10 Chip Counts At The End of Day 1

1. Ahadpur Khangah – 1,155,000

2. Pascal LeFrancois – 647,000

3. David Peters – 638,000

4. Seth Davies – 622,000

5. Timothy Adams – 587,000

6. Jan-Eric Schwippert – 545,000

7. Patrik Antonius – 517,000

8. Jean-Noel Thorel – 496,000

9. Bryn Kenney – 494,000

10. Benjamin Pollak – 469,000

Day 2 Recap

Apart from the 28 survivors who returned to the felts from Day 1, ten more participants joined the fray bringing the total player pool to 54 entries and generating a prize pool of €5,239,080.

A total of 29 eliminations took place throughout the day including Daniel Negreanu, Stephen Chidwick, David Peters, Patrik Antonius, Anthony Zinno, €10,300 High Roller Winner Michael Soyza and Dietrich Fast.

During level 15, Khangah limped in and Byron Kaverman called from the small bling while Bryn Kenney 3-bet all in for 160,000 from the button. Khangah called and Kaverman folded. Khangah tabled against Kenney’s . Kenney was in the lead when the flop fell . The on the turn missed both players, but the river brought Khangah a pair of queens which resulted in Kenney bubbling the final table.

The nine-handed final table began with Khangah (3,170,000) in the lead, with Matthias Eibinger (2,610,000) and Mikita Badziakouski (1,800,000) rounding up the top three stacks.

Play carried on for approximately five more hours, till level 18, and Eibinger (3,040,000) managed to take the top spot as the bags were brought out.

With only the top seven places receiving a min-cash of €275,050, these nine players will return for the third and final day to fight for the top prize of €1,650,300.

Final Table Chip Counts

1. Matthias Eibinger – 3,040,000

2. Mikita Badziakouski – 2,570,000

3. Ahadpur Khangah – 2,105,000

4. Cary Katz – 1,425,000

5. Timothy Adams – 1,245,000

6. Rui Neves Ferreira – 1,020,000

7. Benjamin Pollak – 765,000

8. Jean Ferreira – 720,000

9. Byron Kaverman – 610,000

€2,200 EPT National High Roller

The EPT National High Roller will be held across two starting flights for a buy-in of €2,200. Day 1A of the event witnessed 12 rigorous hours of play and drew in a player pool of 1,053 entries, but only 15% of the playing field made it to Day 2.

While many big names from the poker fraternity participated in the event, not everyone made the cut for Day 2. Sylvain Loosli, Heidi May, Bart Lybaert, Chris Moorman, Jason Wheeler and Kristen Bicknell were amongst those who busted out on Day 1A.

However, out of the 158 entrants who qualified for Day 2, several players managed to accumulate workable stacks including Roberto Morra (330,000), Pedro Cairat (200,000), PokerStars Team Pro Jeff Gross (170,000), Ana Marquez (68,000), Ryan Riess (37,000), Martin Jacobson (35,000) and Alex Foxen (35,000).

Parham Ahoor became the money bubble boy when his ran into his opponent’s . With the board running , his opponent picked up a top pair of aces as Ahoor was eliminated in 159^th place.

In the meantime, Marc MacDonnell and Jack Salter were tied in the top slot with a stack of 600,000 each and they will lead the remaining players to Day 2 where all the runners will be assured payouts.

Top 10 Chip Counts At The End of Day 1A

1. Marc MacDonnell – 600,000

2. Jack Salter – 600,000

3. Huesnue Salman – 570,000

4. Ran Ilani – 370,000

5. Sandro Pitzanti – 360,000

6. Matous Houzvicek – 350,000

7. Guillaume Diaz – 345,000

8. Benny Glaser – 345,000

9. Thales Koppe – 335,000

10. Roberto Morra – 330,000

Keep following all the latest updates from EPT Barcelona right here on PokerGuru!

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