August 23 2012, Chad Holloway

On Thursday, the 2012 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event continued as 61 players returned to play down to the final 24. After a little more than three levels of play, Samuel Rodriguez finished atop the chip counts with 5,330,000.

Day 4 kicked off with a bang when short-stacked Team PokerStars Pro Matthias de Meulder got all in preflop with and was racing against the of Felix Kretchmann. The flop didn’t hit de Meulder directly, but it did give him an added gut-shot straight draw to go with his overs. The turn gave de Meulder counterfeits outs as well, but the river blanked. With that, he exited the tournament floor and left Fatima Moreira de Melo as the last Team PokerStars Pros remaining.

Over the next few hours the field began to shrink. Among those making their way to the payout desk were Yuri Gulyy (57th – “14,150), Kevin Weiland (56th – “16,800), Konstantin Puchkov (48th – “16,800), Andrey Zaichenko (45th – “16,800) and Zimnan Ziyard (44th – “16,800).

In Level 21, Jonathan “xMONSTERxDONGx” Karamalikis became the new chip leader and the first to break the 2 million mark. It happened when a player opened to 25,000, Karamalikis three-bet to 65,000 from the small blind, and Kretchmann four-bet to 150,000 from the big blind. The original raiser folded, Karamalikis five-bet to 275,000, a call ensued and the flop fell . Karamalikis continued for 340,000 and then called all-in when his opponent shoved.

The board ran out and Karamalikis doubled to 2.65 million. Kretchmann was eliminated a few hands later in 39th place for “20,000.

Others who fell toward midday were Leo Margets (42nd – “16,800), Daniel Rudd (36th – “20,000), Guy Thomas (33rd – “20,000), Konstantin Streletskiy (29th – “24,650), Anatoly Gurtavoy (28th – “24,650), and Ilan Boujenah (25th – “24,650).

Among the 24 players who made it through Day 4 are SportStar de Melo; online poker legend Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies; five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner John Juanda; Day 1a chip leader Aku Joentausta; Season 7 EPT Prague winner Roberto Romanello; and the start-of-the-day chip leader Antonin Duda.

End-of-Day 4 Top 10 Chip Counts

Day 5 of the 2012 PokerStars.com EPT Barcelona Main Event will begin at 1200 CET (0600 EDT) as the final 24 players will play down to the final table of eight. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the latest and greatest from the Casino Barcelona.

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