2012 PokerStars.com EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller Day 2: Smith Leads Final Table
Season 9 of the European Poker Tour continued on Saturday with Day 2 of the 2012 PokerStars.com EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller. It took eight levels of play for the final table to be set and Dan Smith leads the way with a stack of 5.108 million.
Smith was red-hot all day long, and that became evident when he and Simon Ravnsbaek, both of who were among the chip leaders, got it in with the same hand — AxKx. Smith held the A♠ and the board just so happened to run out with four spades, giving him a flush and the massive chip lead.
At the start of Day 2, six Day-1 eliminations opted to rebuy — Daniel Negreanu, Sorel Mizzi, Phil Ivey, Ilya Bulychev, Philipp Gruissem and Jonathan Duhamel. In addition, Chris Moorman, who didn’t play on Day 1, chose to wait until the start of Day 2 to jump into the action. Each of these players started with a stack of 250,000, which was about a fifth of chip leader Steve O’Dwyer’s 1.249 million.
All told, 55 players accounted for nine reloads and created a prize pool of €3,072,960. The top eight players would be paid, and the lion’s share, €1,075,500 and a Shamballa Braclet is reserved for the winner.
The eliminations came fast and furious with more than a dozen players falling in the first two levels. Terje “Terken89” Augdal was the first to go, followed closely by Cheung Yin Sun. From there, Andrew Lichtenberger, Timothy Adams, Igor Kurganov, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Steve Silverman, Andy Moseley and [Removed:283] joined them on the rail.
Likewise, the decision to rebuy didn’t pan out for many of the players. Mizzi, Ivey, Gruissem and Negreanu all fell early, as did Duhamel, who found out the hard way that three times is not the charm. In one of the last hands before the first break, action folded to Vadzim Kursevich on the button and he raised to 17,000. Duhamel was next to act in the small blind and three-bet to 44,000, which prompted Kursevich to move all-in. Duhamel called off for around 360,000 and the cards were turned up.
Showdown
Kursevich: A♦8♦
Duhamel: A♥K♥
The young Canadian was in great shape to double, though the 10x7x6x flop did give his opponent a gut-shot straight draw. The 2♥ turn put two hearts on the board to give Duhamel blockers, which made it all the more heartbreaking when an offsuit 8x spiked on the river to eliminate Duhamel for the third and final time.
Over the course of the next few hours, Moorman, Bulychev, Justin Bonomo, Ziv Bachar, Masa Kagawa, Eugene Katchalov, Jason Mercier, Juha Helppi, Sami Kelopuro, Scott Seiver and Kursevich all hit the rail. It was around this time that Smith won another massive pot, one that exemplified just how well he was running.
It happened at the main feature table when JC Alvarado opened from early position with a raise to 45,000. Smith called from the cutoff, as did Tobias Reinkemeier from the big blind, and there was three-way action to the J♦9♥J♣ flop. Both Reinkemeier and Alvarado checked, but Smith opted to fire out 85,000. Reinkemeier called, Alvarado folded, and the 6♠ appeared on the turn. Reinkemeier check-called a bet of 181,000, and then checked the K♥ river. Smith went in with another 384,000, Reinkemeier moved all-in, and Smith snap-called. Reinkemeier opened J♠ 9♠ for jacks full of nines, but Smith had even better as his KxJx got their on the river. With that, Smith chipped up to over 5 million while a shell-shocked Reinkemeier exited the tournament.
O’Dwyer exited in 13th place after being stuck in reverse most of the day, and Ignat “0Human0” Liviu, Anatoly Gurtovoy, John Juanda, O’Dwyer, Peter Jetten, and Artem Litvinov all kept him company on the rail.
Here’s a look at the final table chip counts:
Season 9 EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller Final Table
| Seat | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | JC Alvarado | 3,116,000 |
| 2 | Mike McDonald | 4,650,000 |
| 3 | Erik Seidel | 698,000 |
| 4 | Mike Watson | 604,000 |
| 5 | Dan Smith | 5,108,000 |
| 6 | Jim McCrink | 500,000 |
| 7 | Ilari Sahamies | 685,000 |
| 8 | Talal Shakerchi | 670,000 |
The conclusion of the EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller will begin at 1300 CET (0700 EST) on Sunday. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the hands and eliminations from the final table in Barcelona, Spain.
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