A massive crowd has already come through Casino Barcelona for the €1,100 Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event at the 2023 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona. The field will only get bigger today when Day 1g begins at 11 a.m. local time, presenting another chance for players to join what could be a record-setting field.
Day 1g is the seventh of eight starting flights. There have already been 4,331 entries through the first six, with 650 players qualifying for Day 2. Avihai Smadga of Israel took the overall tournament chip lead yesterday with 983,000, followed close behind by Emmanuel Lopez (829,000) and James Akenhead (804,000).
Overall Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avihai Smadga | Israel | 983,000 |
| 2 | Emmanuel Lopez | Argentina | 829,000 |
| 3 | James Akenhead | United Kingdom | 804,000 |
| 4 | Pavlos Xanthopoulos | Greece | 799,000 |
| 5 | Oleksii Natoptanyi | Ukraine | 781,000 |
| 6 | Theodoros Ampelikiotis | Greece | 772,000 |
| 7 | Marcos Diego | Spain | 767,000 |
| 8 | Nabil Benchaouch | France | 729,000 |
| 9 | Vasyl Laba | Ukraine | 671,000 |
| 10 | Jose Rodriguez Zurita | Mexico | 610,000 |
Other players who are already in the money and waiting for Day 2 include Jack Salter (410,000), Francisco Benitez (240,000) Team PokerStars Pro Arlie Shaban (206,000), Adam Hendrix (121,000), and Martin Jacobson (103,000). Irene Albarran, the Team PokerStars Pro and Twitch streamer better known as “Frogy,” has 146,000, while fellow Team Pros Ramon Colillas and Benjamin Spragg are on short stacks each with 59,000.
Players on Day 1g begin with 30,000 chips and will play 30-minute levels until only 15 percent of the field remains. Late registration is open through the end of Level 10, and players are allowed one reentry per flight. There are already nearly 530 players signed up for this flight, but that number should grow exponentially over the course of the day. There will also be a Day 1h flight at 6 p.m. local time featuring 20-minute levels.
The remaining players from the Day 1 flights combine tomorrow at noon for Day 2, at which point the prize pool will be confirmed. It’s the goal of every player who takes to the felt today to be among them, and PokerNews will be following their journey the entire way and providing live updates.
