Thursday, 30th May 2024 10:45
Home / Uncategorized / ESPT6 Barcelona: Pablo Gordillo tops Day 1B, grabs lead in Estrellas Main

As afternoon turned to evening during Day 1B of the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event — about halfway through the day’s play — we first noticed Spain’s Pablo Gordillo already sitting behind growing columns of chips.

He’s only 22 (having a birthday last week), he’s made two EPT Main Event final tables already, and he also final tabled the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event at the last EPT stop in May. And with two of three Day 1 flights done in the Estrellas, he’s built the biggest stack so far with 353,100.

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Pablo Gordillo
At the day’s start we were readying for a big crowd, and sure enough that’s precisely what played out with 1,122 players showing up to fill the main poker room (and then some) for Day 1B.

Added to yesterday’s 592, that makes 1,714 players so far for ESPT Barcelona, and at last look there were nearly 1,200 registered already for tomorrow’s Day 1C, which means the overall total might in fact exceed 3,000. That will shatter last year’s record field of 2,560 — the most ever previously for a PokerStars live freezeout.

Gordillo’s late night push means he moved ahead of Day 1A leader Fernando Heredia, also of Spain, who ended with 336,200. Also collecting a big stacks today were Lucas Monnier of France (307,700), the Dutchman Raoul Refos (300,500), and Montenegro’s Velizar Gardasevic (290,500).

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Velizar Gardasevic
Valentino Konakchiev of Bulgaria, who qualified for the event on PokerStars, bagged up 270,700.

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Valentino Konakchiev
Others with plenty to count up after the last hand was dealt included Paulo Roberto (Portugal, 258,000), Farid Chati (Morocco, 252,300), and Thierry Navarro (France, 231,200). Another big stack is Andrew Chen (Canada, 230,000) who final-tabled this same event a year ago, finishing sixth.

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Andrew Chen
None of the Team PokerStars Pros taking part today — Leo Margets, Marcin Horecki, Pier Paolo Fabretti, and George Danzer — were around at the end, but Russia’s Liliya “Liay5” Novikova of Team PokerStars Pro Online was, having ended with 171,500.

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Team PokerStars Pro Online member Liliya “Liay5” Novikova
A total of 330 players made it through Day 1B, meaning 496 have made it to Day 2 thus far. Click here for a complete list of end-of-Day-1B chip counts.

In our last we spent some time sorting through the various side action from this second full day at the EPT Barcelona festival. Before signing off tonight we can add a couple of postscripts to those updates.

Flight 1D of the Barcelona Cup ended up attracting 431 runners — the biggest flight so far for the €300 NLHE event. They’ll play down to about 65 players tonight, then pick up again with Flight 1E tomorrow.

Meanwhile on our last check of the €5K 8-game, they were still on the money bubble with six left and five spots paying, and Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen one of the last half-dozen.

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Team PokerStars Pro Theo Jorgensen
It all gets going again tomorrow at noon for the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event and that final Day 1 flight, with another couple of satellites and one more Barcelona Cup flight in action.

Until then keep an eye on the side events results page for more updates, and we’ll reunite here mañana!

To get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts from EPT12 Barcelona, don’t forget to download the EPT App on both Android or IOS.

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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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