They said that the second starting day of the European Poker Tour (EPT) Madrid Main Event would be much bigger than the first starting flight, and they were right. With 352 players paying €5,000 + €300 on Tuesday, Day 1B turned out to be almost three times as large as Day 1A, which had just 125 players. The 477 total players still makes it significantly smaller than both this season’s EPT Barcelona (811 players) and last year’s EPT stop in Madrid, which saw 686 players enter (though, to be fair, that was the EPT Grand Final). Spain’s Juan Navarrete Azon closed out Day 1B as both that flight’s chip leader and the overall chip leader, bagging a collection of 173,200 chips. The top four overall chips stacks all belong to Day 1B players, relegating Day 1A leader, Sergiy Baranov, to fifth place.
With 477 players in the field, the total prize pool for EPT Madrid is €2,313,450 with 72 players making the money. The eventual champion will win €545,000.
The chip leader, Juan Navarrete Azon, is a virtual unknown on the live tournament circuit, with just three cashes to his name, all coming last year. His biggest cash was for €16,000 ($23,051) for a 47th place finish in the 2011 EPT Barcelona Main Event. All three of his cashes were in his home country of Spain.
Navarrete made his big jump into the chip lead near the end of the night, taking a huge pot from Steve O’Dwyer, who has seemed to be in the thick of every major event recently. Navarrete raised to 1,600 pre-flop, another player called, and O’Dwyer, on the button, re-raised to 4,900. Navarrete answered that with a re-raise to 12,600, only to see O’Dwyer take it up to 21,000 after the other player folded. Navarrete had enough of the games, finally just shoving all-in for 70,000 chips. O’Dwyer had Navarrete just barely covered and called, flipping over pocket Queens. Too bad for him that Navarrete had pocket Kings and that was all she wrote. That 150,000 pot was just what the doctor ordered for someone with chip lead aspirations.
The 283 survivors from Days 1A and 1B will combine for Day 2, which will commence at noon local time on Wednesday.
European Poker Tour Madrid – End of Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Juan Navarrete Azon – 173,200
2. Ilan Boujenah – 171,000
3. Taylor Paur – 167,300
4. David Benyamine – 159,500
5. Angel Guillen – 151,800
6. Nicolas Levi – 150,300
7. Ilan Rouah – 133,800
8. Yann Dion – 133,100
9. Javier Rojas Mederos – 128,600
10. Jordi Martinez Spain – 127,300
European Poker Tour Madrid – End of Day 1 Overall Chip Leaders
1. Juan Navarrete Azon – 173,200
2. Ilan Boujenah – 171,000
3. Taylor Paur – 167,300
4. David Benyamine – 159,500
5. Sergiy Baranov – 152,500
6. Angel Guillen – 151,800
7. Nicolas Levi – 150,300
8. Anton Ionel – 142,500
9. Ilan Rouah – 133,800
10. Yann Dion – 133,100
