EPT Barcelona: Juan Maceiras goes from WSOP final table to EPT bubble
A big main event on the European Poker Tour (EPT) means a big bubble. And here in Barcelona, where the field is the second largest ever assembled for a PokerStars tournament of this buy-in, the bubble was always going to be a whopper.
When they returned from a 20-minute break at the end of Level 14, there were 322 players left and 303 due to be paid. The payout structure, announced earlier today, revealed that the winner is set for a €1.488 million payout, but all eyes at this stage were on a min-cash of €8,850.
As you might expect, tension was in the air and play was obviously slow and deliberate — or, maybe, deliberately slow. With 306 players left, Tournament Director Toby Stone announced they would be going hand-for-hand, a process that levels the playing field but that can make things last even longer.
We were treated to some drama right out the blocks, however. PokerStars Ambassador Andre Akkari, who has enjoyed some fine results here in Barcelona, was all-in on the first hand. The full board of 4♣ 3♦ 2♣ 7♠2♠was on the table and Gary Miller was in the tank. (Akkari had check-raised all-in on the river.)
Just quads to survive for Andre Akkari
Miller made the call, with 110,000 behind even if he was wrong, and saw the bad news. Akkari didn’t just have one deuce, he had two. So Akkari’s stack took an enormous boost with quads.
“Quads?” muttered another player who had strolled over to watch. “Oh shit.”
BEHIND-THE-SCENES MADNESS
If you’ve ever watched the bubble coverage on the EPT Live stream, you’ll have seen how drawn out it can become, and how many hands it can sometimes take to lose a single player, let alone three.
What you can’t have seen, however, is what it takes to bring you those pictures. The film crew at the EPT is the best in the business, with the best equipment and the best operators recording the action not only for the live stream, but for later television broadcast.
The crew is large and everyone needs to see everything, which means a military-style operation is regularly traipsing across the room, table to table, to catch the significant action. Along the way, it always picks up stragglers, tournament players whose hands have been folded come along for the ride, like a cheeky driver jumping traffic lights behind an ambulance.
The bubble scrum in Barcelona
“Players, please remain in your seats,” implored Toby Stone. “The TV crew and the tournament staff can’t get to the tables.”
It was a nice effort, but largely in vain.
BUBBLE-UPS KEEP THEM PLAYING
There were three quick double-ups — bubble-ups, if you will — as Nicolaj Nielsen stayed good with a dominant ace, then Pablo Melogno’s A♥ K♥ won a race against Alessio Di Cesare’s pocket tens. Abraham Passet then won another race to survive.
But then Jan Darda became the first player to fall during this tortuous period, losing with A♦ J♥ to Adrian State’s A♥ 8♣ . That brought them to one off the money.
Miller, who had lost a chunk of his stack to Akkari’s quads, found aces at the right time to double. And then Romain Lewis also picked up aces to double his stack as well. The torture went on.
Remarkably, the phalanx of TV crew and reporters kept getting bigger with every all-in, swelling the jostling circle of bodies tightly packed around every table. And then, of course, they were off again after the double-ups, finding the next area to populate.
RELIEF AT LAST
Eventually this strange ritual landed beside the table of Jeffrey Hakim and Juan Maceiras. They were already at a flop of 9♣ 4â™ 7â™ and Maceiras was the player at risk. Having recently visited the WSOP Main Event final table, Maceiras was on a high — but this was another prospect.
They eventually turned over their hands and Maceiras’s Q♥ 9♥ was way behind Hakim’s 4♦ 4♥ . The TD instructed the dealer to deal the turn card, and the Qâ™ brought a huge roar of anxiety from everyone else in the room.
The eventual assassin, Jeff Hakim
This cruel outdraw did not come to pass, however, as the A♣ fell on the river. “Congratulations players, you are all in the money!” said Stone, as the place erupted in a mixture of relief and exuberance.
It lasted far longer than the five levels planned for the day, and people were tired and hungry. But they are all now in the money at EPT Barcelona, and tomorrow’s action is going to be even more frantic.
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