Bubble Looming in Barcelona After Day 2

It may have been relatively short day, but that did not stop nearly two thirds of the returning field to hit the rail during the six levels of play. Of some 900 and change that took their seats today at noon, only 310 of them will be coming back. For others, a dream of winning the biggest ever EPT tournament in Europe is over and they will have to wait for some new record field to conquer.

The bubble was set at 240, so that will be the first order of business when the players come back tomorrow. Although min-cash is only €8,050 it is still better than nothing so short stacks will be looking for their way into the money.

As stated earlier, many have fallen today. Daniel Negreanu was amongst those whose EPT dream is over, although he fought hard to try and grind his decimated stack back to a healthy state, but it was not meant to be. Liv Boeree, winner of the record-holder until today, EPT San Remo, was also sent packing. Ronnie Bardah was waiting and waiting for his chance to double up, but when it finally came it marked his doom. Other big names we will not be seeing tomorrow include Eugene Katchalov, Ivan Demidov, Jake Cody and many others. In total, some 600 players were ousted, so it is a long list.

On the other side of the spectrum are those who made it alive and safe through today’s minefield and will be coming back tomorrow led by Vojtech Ruzicka, who was able to bag 617,000. Italian Max Pescatori also has a good stack to return to amounting to 294,000. Dan Shak will not be unhappy with his performance today either, as he got to pack 188,400.

Notables who still have a stack but also with some work to do before they exit the danger zone include Michael Mizrachi, who only has about fourteen big blinds, PokerStars player Andre Akkari with 55,000 and Martin Jacobson with 72,000. The blinds tomorrow will start at 1,500 / 3,000.

Although organizers had some fears at the start of the day that they would have to play an additional level to get down to planned number of players, the action in all three rooms quickly demonstrated that these fears were completely unfounded. By no means were the players shy to get their chips in the middle and their tournament lives on the line.

We’ve tried to bring you coverage of the event through the eyes of the players primarily and will continue to do so in the coming days. If the pace of the play continues, we are probably not looking at a long day tomorrow either, as there is plenty of time until Wednesday, so tournament staff tries their best to give players as much down time as possible, which should help them in bringing their A-game to the felt – and that’s something we all want to see!