The PokerStars Estrellas Poker Tour (ESPT) at Casino Barcelona continued today with another impressive Day 1 flight; 961 new entries amassed over the 12 hours of play; up 608 entries from the Day 1a flight yesterday. At the end of the night, 144 players bagged and tagged and will be returning for Day 2 after the completion of the other five starting fights in the coming days.
As the dust settled Theodoros Ampelikiotis bagged the overall chip lead, taking through 772,000 for the Day 2 restart. Ampelikiotis wasn't alone in amassing a plentiful stack as bothJose Rodriguez Zurita and Jeremie Zouari were hot on his tails accumulating 610,000 and 606,000 chips respectively.
Day 1c Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Theodoros Ampelikiotis | Greece | 772,000 |
| 2 | Jose Rodriguez Zurita | Mexico | 610,000 |
| 3 | Jeremie Zouari | France | 606,000 |
| 4 | Dragos Anton | Romania | 595,000 |
| 5 | Mateusz Wozniak | Poland | 446,000 |
| 6 | Patrice Brandt | Germany | 417,000 |
| 7 | Georgian Georgescu | United Kingdom | 411,000 |
| 8 | Jack Salter | United Kingdom | 410,000 |
| 9 | Tiziano Di Romualdo | Italy | 404,000 |
| 10 | Istvan Varga | Hungary | 399,000 |
Day 1c welcomed many familiar faces, including PokerStars Team Pro members Fintan Hand and Benjamin Spragg who tried their luck at their first tournament of the stop.
https://twitter.com/spraggy/status/1693950455926153692
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be as Hand made his exit on Level 12 at the hands of Belmehel Dja Daouadji. Spragg also failed to materialize a stack for Day 2, however, a reappearance from both popular Twitch streamers is highly likely in the coming flights.
Florian Duta was also set to make a deep run but was eliminated in brutal fashion late into the day. More notable names to hit the rail included Alex Keating and Dara O'Kearney who are both still vying for their first cash on Spanish soil this year.
Those cashing in this event and moving onto Day 2 include Martin Jacobson (103,000), Aliaksandr Shylko (99,000), Uri Reichenstein (213,000), Jack Salter (410,000) and Alexandre Reard (75,000); no strangers to tournament success, each will have their eye on an early win in Barcelona.
Day 2 will kick off on the 25th of August, but before then, players have plenty more opportunities to get into the mix, with flights 1e, 1f, 1g, and 1h all happening within the next two days.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be back tomorrow to bring you more coverage of the Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event here at EPT Barcelona, so stay tuned.
