Dan Smith Crushes Day 2; Leads Stacked Final Table
Season 9 of the European Poker Tour continued today with Day 2 of the 2012 PokerStars.com EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller. It took just eight levels of play, but eventually the final table was reached with Dan Smith and his stack of 5.108 million leading the way.
At the start of Day 2, six Day 1 eliminations opted to rebuy — Daniel Negreanu, Sorel Mizzi, Phil Ivey, Ilya Bulychev, Philipp Gruissem and Jonathan Duhamel. In addition, Chris Moorman, who didn’t play on Day 1, chose to wait until the start of Day 2 to jump into the action. Each of these players started with a stack of 250,000, which was about a fifth of chip leader Steve O’Dwyer’s 1.249 million.
All told, 55 players accounted for nine reloads and created a prize pool of €3,072,960. The top eight players would be paid, with the lion’s share of €1,075,500 reserved for the winner. Along with the prize money, the winner shall receive a beautiful Shamballa bracelet.
The eliminations came fast and furious with more than a dozen players falling in the first two levels. Terje “Terken89” Augdal was the first to go, followed closely by Cheung Yin Sun, the lone lady in the field. From there, Andrew Lichtenberger, Timothy Adams, Igor Kurganov, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Steve Silverman, Andy Moseley and [Removed:283] joined them on the rail.
Likewise, the decision to rebuy didn’t pan out for many of the players. Mizzi, Ivey, Gruissem and Negreanu all fell early, as did Duhamel, who found out the hard way that three times is not the charm.
Over the course of the next few hours, Moorman, Bulychev, Justin Bonomo, Ziv Bachar, Masa Kagawa, Eugene Katchalov, Jason Mercier, Juha Helppi, Sami Kelopuro, Scott Seiver and Vadzim Kursevich all hit the rail. It was around this time that Smith won a massive pot, one that exemplified just how well he was running.
It happened at the main feature table when JC Alvarado opened from an early position with a raise to 45,000. Smith called from the cutoff, as did Tobias Reinkemeier from the big blind, and it was three-way action to the 
flop. Both Reinkemeier and Alvarado checked, but Smith opted to fire out 85,000. Reinkemeier called, Alvarado folded, and the 
appeared on the turn. Reinkemeier check-called a bet of 181,000, and then checked the 
river. Smith went in with another 384,000, the German moved all in, and Smith snap-called. Reinkemeier opened 
for jacks full of nines, but Smith had even better as his 
got their on the river. With that, Smith chipped up to over five million while a shell-shocked Reinkemeier exited the tournament.
O’Dwyer exited in 13th place after being stuck in reverse most of the day, while Ignat “0Human0” Liviu, Anatoly Gurtovoy, John Juanda, O’Dwyer, Peter Jetten, and Artem Litvinov all kept him company on the rail.
Litvinov proved to be the tournament bubble boy, falling in ninth place to Smith after his 
couldn't improve past the chip leader's 
. From there, just eight remained to return tomorrow and here’s a look how they'll stack up:
Season 9 EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller Final Table
| Seat | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | JC Alvarado | 3,116,000 |
| 2 | Mike McDonald | 4,650,000 |
| 3 | Erik Seidel | 698,000 |
| 4 | Mike Watson | 604,000 |
| 5 | Dan Smith | 5,108,000 |
| 6 | Jim McCrink | 500,000 |
| 7 | Ilari Sahamies | 685,000 |
| 8 | Talal Shakerchi | 670,000 |
The conclusion of the EPT Barcelona €50,000 Super High Roller will begin at 1300 CET (0700 EST) on Sunday. Of course, the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the hands and eliminations from the final table in Barcelona, Spain, so be sure to stay tuned. We'll see you then!