Barcelona Is Ready for a New Champion
Minutes ago the 12th edition of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event started with its final nine players. Live coverage starts in an hour though, as we'll supply you with spoiler free updates right from the live stream. So if you can't watch the live stream, or want to read up on a hand you weren't really paying attention to, check back here regularly and you won't miss a thing.
Despite the plan being to play down to six, play was halted late last night with still nine players in contention. There's one runaway chip leader; Denys Shafikov, (36 from the Ukraine) brings 17,515,000 (109 big blinds) in chips, more than twice the amount his nearest competitor Steve Warburton (7,180,000) gets to start with.
Shortest stack in the room is Amir Touma (41, Lebanon) in seat 2 starts with 1,180,000 in chips (just 7 big blinds) and has his work cut out for him. There's a former EPT champion (Frederik Jensen), a local player (Mario Sanchez), an aggressive player from Scandiavia (Andreas Samuelsson), and an EPT regular ready to chat it up (Steve Warburton). Rainer Kempe was down to just a few big blinds but managed some miraculeus double ups to get back to 21 big blinds, 12 more than Victor Bogdanov who lost lots of chips with a failed big bluff late last night. And then there's John Juanda, the seasoned pro who already finished runner up in an EPT, and now is eyeing his first big prize on European soil since the WSOPE back in 2008.
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denys Shafikov | Ukraine | 17,515,000 | 109 |
| 2 | Amir Touma | Lebanon | 1,180,000 | 7 |
| 3 | Rainer Kempe | Germany | 3,775,000 | 21 |
| 4 | Steven Warburton | United Kingdom | 7,180,000 | 45 |
| 5 | Victor Bogdanov | Russia | 1,415,000 | 9 |
| 6 | John Juanda | Indonesia | 4,040,000 | 25 |
| 7 | Mario Sanchez | Spain | 2,885,000 | 18 |
| 8 | Frederik Jensen | Denmark | 5,580,000 | 35 |
| 9 | Andreas Samuelsson | Sweden | 7,005,000 | 39 |
It's going to be an exciting day of poker and we'll be here all day; from the first flop till the last river. Check back in an hour to see who takes down the biggest Main Event in EPT history and goes home with the €1,420,500 first place prize. While you wait, here's a look at all the previous stops of the EPT Barcelona.
| Season | Year | Champion | Buy-in | Players | First Place Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2004 | Alexander Stevic | €1,000 | 229 | €80,000 |
| 2 | 2005 | Jan Boubli | €4,000 | 327 | €416,000 |
| 3 | 2006 | Bjørn-Erik Glenne | €5,000 | 480 | €691,000 |
| 4 | 2007 | Sander Lyloff | €8,000 | 543 | €1,170,700 |
| 5 | 2008 | Sebastian Ruthenberg | €8,000 | 619 | €1,361,000 |
| 6 | 2009 | Carter Phillips | €8,000 | 478 | €850,000 |
| 7 | 2010 | Kent Lundmark | €5,000 | 758 | €825,000 |
| 8 | 2011 | Martin Schleich | €5,000 | 811 | €850,000 |
| 9 | 2012 | Mikalai Pobal | €5,000 | 1,082 | €1,007,550 |
| 10 | 2013 | Tom Middleton | €5,000 | 1,234 | €942,000 |
| 11 | 2014 | Andre Lettau | €5,000 | 1,496 | €794,058 |
| 12 | 2015 | --TBD-- | €5,000 | 1,694 | €1,420,500 |
The player profiles you can read underneath, courtesy of PokerStars.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
17,515,000 | |
|
7,180,000 | |
|
7,005,000 | |
|
5,580,000 | |
|
||
|
4,040,000 | |
|
||
|
3,775,000 | |
|
2,885,000 | |
|
1,415,000 | |
|
1,180,000 | |