2015 EPT Barcelona Main Event: Day 5 Update

And then there were 9! Although it didn’t quite require an Agatha Christie style plot to unmask the identities of the final table in Barcelona today, there was certainly enough suspense and drama along the way to class it as a thriller.

Play began with 36 players over 5 tables, and chip stacks ranging from leader Peter Eichhardt’s 4 million+ down to Diego del Riego’s meagre 85k. However, it was Mikalai Vaskaboinikau who hits the rails first, lasting only 2 hands of play.

In the opening hand of the day, his A♦10♥ ran foul of Voronin’s 8♦ 8♠ ,while the second hand rather perversely saw the Bulgarian himself holding 8♦ 8♥, which this time failed to hold up against Steven Warburton’s Q♥ J♥. First blood of the day, and there was plenty more to follow.

Andre Akkari, one-time chip leader, fell in 32nd and fellow Team Pokerstars pro Matthias Muelder followed shortly afterwards. Getting down to 2 tables took a while, and eventually it was Roman Korenev who bubbled. His pocket 3’s were holding up nicely until a cruel counterfeit on the river finished off his challenge.

Down to 16 players and most of the action seemed to be on the feature table, including complaints about the slow pace of play. With the payouts rising sharply, and the cameras zoomed in on every nervous twitch and sneaky glance, it wasn’t unexpected – €61,800 for 16th, €104,000 for 9th and €137,080 minimum for making the final table are big jumps.

Hand-to-hand play was called for - and rejected - several times, but the problem finally resolved itself when overnight chip leader Peter Eichhardt fell to the pocket deuces of Denys Shafikov, giving us the unofficial final table.

After this, despite the organisers’ desire to get down to 6 players for the final day action, it never looked likely to happen as the hour got late and the resistance of the smaller stacks proved impossible to break down.

Although Shafikov will start with a 10 million chip lead over next best placed Steve Warburton and Andreas Samuelsson (around 7million each) the €1,420,500 top prize is unlikely to just fall into his hands. Frederik Jensen, John Juanda and Reiner Kempe will hope to make an early move while the others, very short-stacked, will be looking to pick off the prize-jumps.