Kaufman to the Moon, Talbot In His Orbit After Day 2 of Estrellas Main Event
The �1,100 Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event at Casino Barcelona has reached its final 153 players at the end of Day 2 with Ukraine's Igor Kaufman (4,365,000) leading the way with a stack of 4,365,000. Not far behind are PokerStars' own Parker Talbot (3,995,000) and Ukraine's Vasyl Laba (4,075,000)
The ESPT drew a record-breaking field of 7,398 entrants (up from last year's record-breaking field of 6,313) across eight starting flights and saw 1,109 players return for Day 2, all of whom were in the money and guaranteed a payday of at least �1,750.
Among the players to advance to Day 3 are Day 1 chip leaders Avihai Smadga, Benjamin Tessier and Frederik Johansen, as well as James Akenhead, Ewen Trevidy and Vladas Tamasauskas.
Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts
| RANK | PLAYER | COUNTRY | CHIP COUNT | BIG BLINDS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Igor Kaufman | Israel | 4,365,000 | 109 | |
| 2 | Vasyl Laba | Ukraine | 4,075,000 | 102 | |
| 3 | Parker Talbot | Canada | 3,995,000 | 100 | |
| 4 | Manuel Oshea | Spain | 3,700,000 | 93 | |
| 5 | Jeremias Mendoza | Argentina | 3,675,000 | 92 | |
| 6 | David Hareuveni | Israel | 3,495,000 | 87 | |
| 7 | Eduard Barsegyan | Russia | 3,470,000 | 87 | |
| 8 | Lucas Silva Rocha | Brazil | 3,200,000 | 80 | |
| 9 | Ferdinando D'Alessio | Belgium | 3,140,000 | 79 | |
| 10 | Ewen Trevidy | France | 2,940,000 | 74 |
With the money bubble already burst, it didn't take long for the bustout line to start growing.
Some of the players who fell early on Day 2 include Sweden's Alexander Norden (1,106th - �1,750), Julien Mariani (960th - �1,880), Switzerland's Dinesh Alt (945th - �1,880), the Netherlands' Frank Visser (948th - �1,880), Austria's Daniel Rezaei (847th - �2,020) and PokerStars Team Online Pro Benjamin Spragg (774th - �2,290).
Another player who didn't make it through the day was Ali Alnuaimi, who was eliminated in the most brutal way possible as he called off his stack with aces full, losing to the quad queens of Aristidis Theodoridis in a bustout he is unlikely to forget about any time soon.
Later in the evening, Athanasios Fergiatakis had his kings cracked by Andrea Roner, who held ace-queen and flopped a queen before hitting another on the turn.
One player whose big hand did hold up was Carlos Leiva, who tripled up in an aces versus queens versus jacks confrontation against Ferdinando Dalessio and Sandro Pitzanti that skyrocketed the Argentinian up the chip counts.
Other players who didn't make it to bagging time include Uri Reichenstein (300th - �4,650), Jack Salter (408th - �4,040), Teun Mulder (446th - �3,500) and Conor Beresford (453rd - �3,500).
Day 3 action will kick off at noon local time on Level 25 with blinds of 20,000/40,000/40,000. There's still another day to go after that before a winner is crowned on Day 4 on Aug. 27.
Don't go anywhere as the PokerNews live reporting team is on-site here on the coast of Spain and will continue providing updates on the ESPT and EPT Barcelona action.