Jouhkimainen and Negreanu Lead Final Nine; Duhamel and Benefield in Contention
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The second day of the European Poker Tour Season 10 Barcelona €10,000 High Roller event is officially in the books! The final nine players bagged up for the night with Joni Jouhkimainen sitting on top of the largest stack in the room. Right on his heels is PokerStars Team Pro Daniel Negreanu with 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel in the middle of the pack and current November Niner David Benefield representing the short stack.
Registration officially closed for this event after Day 2 began and the end results did not disappoint. This high roller event smashed all previous records for €10,000 buy-in high roller events on the EPT. The record was broken four times last season as each successive event attracted even bigger numbers – from Barcelona to Prague, to London and then Berlin where there were 140 entries. This event managed to top that by 40 entries by garnering 180 entries in total - 138 unique players with 42 re-entries.
As if the record breaking numbers weren't enough to be excited about, the remaining field heading into Day 3 is stacked with familiar faces. The champion of the first high roller of the EPT's 10th season could potentially be a WSOP Main Event champion, a current November Niner, or even the man who caused a scene just one day earlier when he quit this event by punting off his first bullet after a ruling gone awry.
Players flocked to the felt earlier today with the dreams of becoming the next EPT champion. One by one, however, players fell victim to those around them. Names like Kristijonas Andrulis, Jason Mercier, Chino Rheem, Mickey Petersen, Eugene Katchalov, Dani Stern, Ludovic Lacay, Andrew Lichtenberger, and Griffin Benger all fell well before the field hit the money. The top 27 players in the field cashed and the field was whittled to right around that number just before the dinner break. Eventually, it was none other than Igor Kurganov to serve as the bubble boy. Kurganov was all in before the flop holding 
and desperate to improve against Benefield's 
. The board ran out 
and Kurganov was unable to improve. His elimination guaranteed the remaining 27 players a payday of at least €17,650.
The story on everyone's lips as the bubble burst was that of Gerard Piqué, famous footballer for FC Barcelona. Piqué, who entered the day as one of the top stacks, actually managed to overtake the chip leader early in the day. After peaking in the first few levels he trended downward but was still able to hang on and make a cash. Piqué eventually met his end at the hands of Duhamel after getting it all in before the flop and dominated. Piqué busted in 19th place and collected €21,150 for his efforts.
Other notable names to fall in the money include Benny Spindler (27th), Timothy Adams (25th), Philipp Gruissem (23rd), Dan Smith (21st), Toby Lewis (18th), Kevin Vandersmissen (13th), and Sam Chartier (12th).
This exciting tournament will reach its conclusion on Saturday where the final nine will take their seats and play down until only one man stands. Be sure to join us as we provide all of the updates from the floor of the beautiful Casino Barcelona. Until tomorrow!.