Bubble Bursts in Barcelona, Day 3 Ends With 103 Players

EPT Barcelona is taking huge steps towards the final table set to play out on Wednesday. Already yesterday, the field shrunk to 310 players, and with 239 guaranteed to make the money, the bubble phase was expected to commence not too deep into the day.

Although it did come pretty much as expected, the bubble phase ended in somewhat unorthodox and innovative way. The bubble boy would not walk with nothing from Barcelona as there was $5,300 seat to Seminole Hard Rock $10 million guaranteed waiting for that unlucky 240th place finisher (and a cool guitar). The problem arose when five players were eliminated in the same hand during the hand-for-hand phase, and there was only one prize.

So it was up to Neil Johnson, EPT Live Event specialist, to untie this node, and this is what he came up with. Tournament payouts were distributed amongst the players as usual, while the five players would play a sit and go to determine who gets the Seminole seat.

Poker gods favored Charles Scapula who was able to defeat Randal Flowers in the heads up, and soon after, he was proud owner of the Seminole Hard Rock seat, a tournament that awarded $1,750,000 to the winner last year together with really cool looking guitar.

Lost the turbo sng hu. :(
— Randal Flowers (@RandALLin) August 24, 2014

Pictures by Neil Stoodart, PokerStars Blog

As the bubble burst, there was not much reason for short stacks to try and hold on anymore and the action took faster pace. When it was all said and done at the end of five 90-minute levels, only 103 players were left in the field.

It was Andrei Konopelko who ended up bagging the chip lead. 50-year old from Belarus got his seat in this tournament via $530 qualifier and now he is only some hundred players away from the first place of €1,261,000. He bagged 1,451,000 chips.

However, Konopelko is in good company around the top, because the likes of Martin Finger, Davidi Kitai and Marko Neumann will all be coming back tomorrow with big stacks. Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald also has some workable chips, just like Ismael Bojang and Emil Patel.

Some, of course, had to relinquish their seats through the course of today’s five levels. Ole Schemion departed in 211th, Ludovic Riehl bid his farewell in 168th and Dan Shak exited in 129th. Still, there is quite a concentration of strong players at the remaining tables, which should guarantee for some quality poker.

There are only two more days before the final table is formed and play seems right on pace. Who will be the next winner in the record breaking EPT field in Barcelona?