EPT Barcelona 2011 Down To 24 Players
August 31, 2011 7:50 amOriginally, 811 players paid the €5,300 EPT Barcelona Main Event buy-in to create a prize pool worth €4.05 million with a first place prize set at €850,000.
With Day 3 of the tournament now over, just 24 players from the 114 who started the day are still left in the hunt with the most well known name remaining being Eugene Katchalov.
Currently in 6th spot, Eugene Katchalov has won an incredible $6.4 million in live tournament earnings since 2004, and the 29-year-old Ukranian-born US pro will now be hoping to win a triple crown by adding an EPT title to his WPT and WSOP titles.
Katchalov’s chances were given a huge boost near the end of the night, after pushing over the top of a three-bet for all his chips holding pocket eights to his opponent’s pocket tens. The board then fell K-8-7-5-5 and so Katchalov will now be returning on Day 4 with 1.452 million in chips.
Leading the field overnight on a 2.543 million stack is Spain’s own Bartolome Gomila Romero, whose cause was aided by a double elimination holding pocket kings to his opponent’s pocket eights and K-Q. Also still in contention is Team PokerStars Pro Matthias De Meulder in 8th place on a 1.376 million stack.
On the other hand, players falling just short of the 120 player money bubble included Chris Moorman and Ivan Demidov. Meanwhile, amongst those players cashing on Day 3 but eliminated before the end of play were Vanessa Selbst, Victor Ramdin, Leo Margets, Rino Mathis, Juan Manuel Pastor, Andre Akkari and Alex Kravchenko.
Former tennis pro Boris Becker also found his tournament in Barcelona come to a close after nursing a short-stack most of the day, before then pushing his remaining chips from the hijack holding Kh-4h. He was then called by the button who held pocket sixes and with the board running out J-6-2-A-7, Becker was eliminated in 97th place for a €8,000 ($11,476) payday.
The remaining 24 players will now return on Day 4 of the competition at noon local time, where they will play down to the final table of nine.