The second half of the field in the 2008 EPT Barcelona Open kicked off its tournament with eight levels of play on Thursday afternoon, maxing out the casino floor and accommodating so many alternates and late entries that the player count reached a total of 619, two tables more than what was originally determined to be the cap.
As a result, the large field created a total prize pool of €4,952,000, more than a quarter of which was earmarked for the eventual champion. Here are the payouts for the final table of eight:
| Place |
Prize |
| 1 |
€1,361,000 |
| 2 |
€792,000 |
| 3 |
€455,000 |
| 4 |
€351,000 |
| 5 |
€292,000 |
| 6 |
€227,000 |
| 7 |
€178,000 |
| 8 |
€119,000 |
With only 10,000 in starting chips and one-hour blind levels, the tables collapsed fairly quickly, slightly out-pacing yesterday’s all-in mayhem. Lost in the shuffle were a number of Team PokerStars Pro bustouts, including Daniel Negreanu, William Thorsson, Gavin Griffin, Isabelle Mercier, Katja Thater, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier.
Negreanu went out fairly early when he flopped middle pair with a flush draw. His opponent flopped a set of deuces, and it held to send the jovial Canadian home. Negreanu recapped his Barcelona experience in a blog on CardPlayer.com.
Of course, with all of the eliminations come a few players who accumulate a lot of chips. Finishing the day as one of the chip leaders was relatively unknown Brice Cournut. The young Frenchman was coming off of a strong final-table performance at the Partouche Poker Tour main event and was looking to keep his momentum going. He spent most of the day seated with Theo Tran, Sorel Mizzi, and Davidi Kitai, but that didn’t stop him from dominating his opponents and picking up stack after stack. He ended the day with about 92,000.
Another player to benefit from some of the dead money here in Barcelona was Michael Lundell. He went on a late surge and won some coin flips to propel him to the top of the leader board. He ended the day with about 98,000. Joining him as big stacks moving onto day 2 are WSOP bracelet winner Sebastian Ruthenberg (104,000) and Jonas Klausen (102,000).
Tomorrow, both starting fields will combine, and the approximately 225 remaining players will continue for another eight levels or will play down to 32 players, whichever comes first. Join us as we bring you all of the updates, chip counts, player interviews, and photos live from the Gran Casino Barcelona.
