After what was a strong Day 1A field of players, the European Poker Tour might have thought that the Day 1B field numbers would be just icing on the cake. Instead, for the 100th event in the EPT’s history, a massive throng flooded the Casino Barcelona in Spain to eventually create the third-largest field in the tour’s history.
If the 475 player field on Thursday wasn’t packed with top players, the mass of humanity on Friday was even thicker with the professionals of the game of poker. From the opening “shuffle up and deal,” such names as Team PokerStars Pros Jake Cody, George Danzer, Marcin Horecki, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Luca Pagano and others such as Andrew Pantling, Noah Schwartz, Byron Kaverman, Steve O’Dwyer, Jeff Madsen and Zimnan Ziyard were already a part of the 750 or so players at the felt. There were also four members of the 2014 World Series of Poker Championship Event “November Nine” (Jorryt van Hoof, Felix Stephensen, Andoni Larrabe and Bruno Politano) who were looking to use some of their ninth-place WSOP money at the EPT Barcelona.
Of these players, Danzer and Pantling made some early moves, with Danzer rivering two pair to pick up a small pot and Pantling twice check-raising Olov Matias Jansson to pick up a larger one. O’Dwyer, however, went in the opposite direction to become one of those among the early eliminations. After three-betting the action, O’Dwyer saw Vojtech Ruzicka crack the action up with a four bet. O’Dwyer called and the twosome saw a J-10-7 flop with two spades. After O’Dwyer check-called a bet from Ruzicka, an 8♠ came on the turn and was checked to see a 5♠ river complete the board. After checking again, O’Dwyer called an all-in from Ruzicka and was dismayed to see his A-Q♠ crushed by the A♠-A of Ruzicka, ending O’Dwyer’s tournament before the conclusion of the second level of the day’s play.
O’Dwyer wouldn’t be the only top pro to experience the pain of the Day 1B minefield. Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Balasz Botond, Manig Loeser, Sam Grafton, Michael Tureniec, Ziyard, de Melo and van Hoof were all relegated to the rail before the dinner break was reached. Following the sustenance break, they were joined on the rail by Jason Mercier, Annette Obrestad (particularly cruel when her pocket tens were outrun by an opponent’s A-8 on a Q-Q-9-8-8 board) and Danzer as the action for the night came to a close.
By the time the final numbers were put together, 1010 players had come out to make up the massive Day 1B field, making the total player field 1485 players. With that count, the EPT Barcelona became the third largest field in the history of the EPT, behind only the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure fields in 2006 and 2007 (1529 and 1560 players, respectively). That number could grow even larger as registration is open for the EPT Barcelona until the start of Day 2 on Saturday.
At the end of it all, Spain’s Jose Lamarca was able to emerge with the chip lead for the day and, in besting Day 1A chip leader Michael Mizrachi, sits as the overall leader with an unofficial remaining player count of almost 1000:
Day 1B Leaders
1. Jose Lamarca, 193,300
2. Marcelo Ramos da Fonseca, 176,000
3. Timur Margolin, 166,175
4. Timo Pfutzenreuter, 163,600
5. Vojtech Ruzicka, 155,300
6. Hisashi Inamura, 145,000
7. Tommie Janssen, 138,000
8. Iuril Nesterenko, 136,000
9. Frederick Souleyras, 135,000
10. Vincent Robert, 130,400
Overall Leaderboard
1. Jose Lamarca, 193,300
2. Michael Mizrachi, 186,600*
3. Marcelo Ramos da Fonseca, 176,000
4. Charlie Combes, 172,400*
5. Timur Margolin, 166,175
6. Timo Pfutzenreuter, 163,600
7. Dmitry Yurasov, 163,100*
8. Vojtech Ruzicka, 155,300
9. Maksim Semisoshenko, 149,000*
10. Marko Neumann, 146,200*
* – indicates Day 1A player
Day 2 has begun on the coast of Spain with the players still looking at some heavy lifting to just get to the money. Eleven more players bought in before the start of play, bringing the final field to 1496, and the top 239 players with walk off with at least €8050. The top prize of €1,261,000 will be befitting of the champion of the 100th tournament of the European Poker Tour’s history.