Noble Claims Lead After Day 1b; Another Strong Turnout in the Opening Event
The 2017 888Live Poker Festival Barcelona saw yet another strong turnout for the €220 Opening Event as 202 entries including 33 re-entries took part on Day 1b, boosting the overall attendance for the first flagship tournament of the 12-day festival at Casino Barcelona to 396 entries for now.
The second of four starting days may have attracted even more players if it wasn't for the €80+8 "The Thunder" Side Event that kicked off two hours later. Initially set with a guarantee of €10,000, the tournament saw incredible 235 entries create a prize pool of €18,800 and the top 27 spots earned at least €150. The bubble burst at 3.50 am local time and the tournament was still going on at the time of writing.
After 14 levels of 30 minutes each, Day 1b of the €220 Opening Event saw its field reduced to just 40 survivors and Philippe Noble narrowly missed out on the overall lead by just two big blinds after claiming 443,000. Noble started building his stack in a three-way showdown in level six with pocket tens versus ace-queen and king-queen, and the Frenchman consistently built his stack from there. On his way to the chip lead, former big stack Joan Fabregas Capellas fell victim of Noble's hot run when pocket nines failed to hold against jack-ten suited.
Joachim Lob had a roller coaster day and was all but gone in the last two levels of the night, getting it in with king-queen for top pair on the flop. His opponent had pocket aces and a queen appeared on the turn to save the Swiss. Lob then played another huge pot in the last level of the night to river a flush against Nicola Grieco and bagged up 405,000.
Top 5 Chip Counts Day 1b
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Philippe Noble | France | 443,000 |
| 2 | Joachim Lob | Switzerland | 405,000 |
| 3 | Ignasi Cabrera Rogent | Spain | 319,500 |
| 4 | Jordi Marcos Fernandez | Spain | 273,500 |
| 5 | Nil Micola Benaiges | Spain | 272,000 |
All remaining players in the top 10 of Day 1b are from Spain with Ignasi Cabrera Rogent in third place (319,500), and Josep Maria Galindo Lopez (265,000) is among the notables that made it through with twice the average. Kaido Koorits (140,500) and [Removed:400] (137,500) are in the middle of the pack while Stefan van der Pol (58,500), Aleksei Istomin (45,500) and Guillem Cusco Bach (43,000) will need plenty of run-good early on Day 2 as of 1 p.m. local time on Sunday, May 14th.
Among those that failed to bag up chips for Day 2 just yet were Sally Stephens, Douglas Weathland, Thomas Elder, Thomas Groven, Stephan van den Wyngaert, Luka Cencelj and Jamali Razavi to name just a few. They all have another shot, or two, at the juicy prize pool, as Saturday features the remaining two starting days at the Casino Barcelona.
Day 1c will kick off at 2 p.m. local time with the usual 30-minute structure, while the Turbo Heat 1d has 15-minute levels and gets underway at 8 p.m. local time. Both flights will finish at a similar time, and another one-day event is scheduled for 8 p.m. local time also. "The Breeze" features a buy-in of €100+10 and a guaranteed prize pool of €20,000, the levels last 25 minutes each and the starting stack is 15,000. It would be no surprise to see that number crushed based on the action thus far here in Barcelona.
Tune back in tomorrow for more action, as the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor throughout the festival in sunny Barcelona. 888poker is taking back the game to the players and at least €700,000 of guaranteed prize pools await until May 22nd.