The Race to the Money on Day 2 of the 2018 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Grand Final Barcelona
Within four different starting days and throughout 12 levels of 45 minutes each, the flagship event of the 2018 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Grand Final Barcelona poker festival has gathered a total of 1,175 entries at €10,300 each for the Main Event. The initial prize pool with €10,000,000 was not only met but easily surpassed and the remaining 329 players are battling for their share of the massive €11,397,500 prize pool.
Leading the field is Denmark's Morten Mortensen with 11.655 million followed by Sergey Lebedev (11.35 million), while team partypoker's Philipp Gruissem sits in third place with 10.97 million. To list all big names still in contention in this field may turn into a lengthy task, as literally all tables of the previous four starting days were filled with familiar faces of the international poker circuit.
| Tournament Day | Date | Further Information |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1a | Wednesday, April 11, 2018 @ 12:00 | 93 out of 338 players advanced to Day 2 |
| Day 1b | Wednesday, April 11, 2018 @ 17:00 | 40 out of 150 players advanced to Day 2 |
| Day 1c | Thursday, April 12, 2018 @ 12:00 | 110 out of 383 players advanced to Day 2 |
| Day 1d | Thursday, April 12, 2018 @ 17:00 | 86 out of 304 players advanced to Day 2 |
| Day 2 | Friday, April 13, 2018 @ 13:00 | 329 of 1,175 entries remain, 60 min Levels, at Least 8 Levels Total Scheduled |
| Day 3 | Saturday, April 14, 2018 @ 12:00 | 60 min Levels, 8 Levels Total or Down to Final Table |
| Day 4 | Sunday, April 15, 2018 @ 12:00 | 60 min Levels, Play Down to a Winner |
Preben Stokkan, who won a partypoker LIVE MILLIONS High Roller and final tabled the Main Event at the 2017 Caribbean Poker Party, sailed smoothly through Day 1b as well and returns with a stack of 10.74 million, just ahead of High Roller regular Ramin Hajiyev with 9.97 million. The top ten also feature 1d chip leader Anthony Zinno (8.95 million), Thomas Muehloecker (8.54 million) and Kenneth Smaron (8.525 million).
Team partypoker will be represented by ambasssador Sam Trickett (7.8 million), Isaac Haxton (5.33 million), team online's Josip Simunic (4.385 million), the sponsored pros Johnny Lodden (4.105 million) and Roberto Romanello (3.6 million), ambassador Joao Simao (2.755 million) and the sponsored pros Anatoly Filatov (1.65 million) and Kristen Bicknell (1.22 million).
With an average stack of just under 3.6 million, the returning players will have more than 50 big blinds on average for the first level of Day 2 at blinds of 35,000/70,000. On top of that, the level duration increases to 60 minutes for the remainder of the tournament to make for a deeper structure late on when it matters the most. The money bubble is expected to burst in the last two levels of the day and at least eight levels are scheduled, this may be increased to 10 due to the field size, though.
For all those that failed to advance to Day 2 of the record-setting event, there are two other Side Events kicking off today: The first two flights of the €1,100 Finale that comes with a guaranteed prize pool of €1,000,000 start at 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. respectively, and . the three-day €10,300 High Roller offers double of that with €2,000,000 up for grabs.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor to provide all the action from the Main Event and Finale until the respective champion is crowned, so make sure to tune back in regularly. You can also follow the updates on the My partypoker LIVE website, take part in competitions and watch the live stream of the feature table on a security delay of 30 minutes.