August 27 2011, Donnie Peters

Day 1a of the 2011 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event wrapped up on Saturday after nine levels of play. A starting field of 346 players came out, and at the end of the day, the field was whittled down to around 200 with Martin Schleich on top holding 182,100 in chips.

There were plenty of notable players in the field including a number Team PokerStars Pros Lex Veldhuis, Johnny Lodden, Martin Hruby, Juan Maceiras and Sandra Naujoks. Unfortunately, they all failed to make it through the day, as was Ana Marquez, the newest member to Team PokerStars Pro.

In Marquez’s bust-out hand, a player who ended up not factoring into the showdown opened with a raise, and Erik van den Berg flatted in the cutoff. In the small blind, Marquez came along, and it was three-handed to the flop.

The dealer spread out the flop and the action checked to van den Berg. He put out a bet of 1,500, and the initial raiser folded without incident. Marquez check-raised to 5,000, and van den Berg promptly reraised to put her to the decision for her full stack. She eventually made the call with , looking to fill in the combo draw to stay alive. Van den Berg, holding , flopped top set to put him in front.

The turn was a very bad card for Marquez, giving van den Berg the full house and leaving Marquez dead to the one-out . The river was a blank, though, and Marquez was sent packing.

On the other side of the coin, a few of the Team PokerStars Pros to thrive were Vanessa Selbst, Andre Akkari and Ville Wahlbeck.

Selbst gained a lot of her chips when she clashed with Domantas Klimciauskas. Selbst five-bet shipped with and got there against Klimciauskas’ pocket kings after an ace flopped. From there, she won another big pot with her own pocket kings against Martial Blangenwitsch’s . All of the money went in on a flop of . The turn and river both blanked and moved Selbst into the early chip lead. She went on to finish the day with 81,500.

A few other notable players able to advance to Day 2 are Mickey Petersen, Chris Moorman, Bryn Kenney, Ivan Freitez and Leo Margets. They’ll have the day off on Sunday while Day 1b is going on before returning back to action on Monday.

Day 1b will begin Sunday at noon CEST (0300 PDT) in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. Another nine levels are on the slate and the field is expected to be much larger than Saturday’s, hopefully growing the full field size to over 800 entrants.

Some of the players who will be in action Sunday include Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Allen Bari, Phil Collins and Eugene Katchalov. You won’t want to miss any action from those poker superstars so be sure to stay tuned to the PokerNews Live Reporting pages for all the coverage.

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August 11 2011, Cory Dowd

Day 2 of the inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event is in the books. The tournament played its way down to the final 18 competitors on Wednesday night. While that officially takes the field into the money, more importantly perhaps, is that everyone remaining has locked up points towards the end-of-the-season freeroll where $1 million will be up for grabs.

Sam Trickett continues his fantastic 2011 and will enter Day 3 with 1.032 million in chips — good enough for the lead after almost a full 13 levels of play. At the end of the day, Trickett, along with the other 17 players, decided to take $17,340 from the second place payout and give it to the winner, so they are now fighting for an even $1,000,000 up top.

The tournament began with 63 players Wednesday, but eliminations started early and came often. Dwyte Pilgrim, Dan Shak, Vanessa Selbst, Sorel Mizzi, Phil Laak and Daniel Alaei were some of the casualties during Level 1. As play continued, the field lost Chad Brown, Shannon Shorr, Mike Sexton, John Racener and Justin Young. Antonio Esfandiari made a play early in the day against Chino Rheem when he overbet the pot on a flop by moving all-in for nearly 150,000, despite the pot having only reached about 30,000 to that point. Rheem called and Esfandiari’s held on against Rheem’s . He too, however, could not make it through Day 2.

After the dinner break, play got increasingly tense as the possibility of cashing in the very first EPL event became more and more real. Ben Lamb, Tom Marchese and Nam Le all got within a table of making the history books, but fell short. Brian Rast was busted by Jason Mercier near the end of the day as well, in a hand he won’t soon forget. Creating a pot of over 600,000, he moved all-in on a board of with , but was drawing dead against Mercier’s .

The most unfortunate player of the day was Matt Graham who found himself exit squarely on the bubble. He limped from the small blind before Rheem jammed from the big blind. Graham called off his final 142,500 with and found himself ahead and dominating against Rheem’s . On the turn, however, Rheem made the nut flush when the board ran out .

While Graham was understandably unhappy about his elimination, it brought a quiet smile to 18 faces around the room as they began bagging up their chips for Thursday. It should also be noted that of the eight players that owned temporary cards via entry from the Pro/Am, two still remain, Dan Fleyshman and Brandon Meyers. You can find out the entire list of players still remaining in the event and relive the action from Day 2 on our Live Reporting pages.

Top Five Chip Counts

The field for the Main Event was strong with the top talent from across the world showing up to test their skills against the best of the best. The action has been sharp, the pots lively and the entertainment vast. Day 3 will be sure to continue right along with those trends so be sure to check back here Thursday at 1200 PDT (2000 BST) when, as always, PokerNews will have as much action as you can take as we play our way down to the final table!

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