Andrey Sharonov Leads EPT 13 Barcelona Main Event After Day 1b; Attendance Record Shattered
Sun, sea, sand - and lots of poker! Barcelona delivered once again, as the EPT-attendance record from last year's stop was shattered. On Day 1b, 1,291 players put €5,300 on the line to take a shot at the biggest EPT Main Event in history. Combined with Day 1a's total of 468 players, the field already consists unofficially of 1,759 players. With late registration open until the start of Day 2, the new attendance record is expected to be pushed even higher.
Today saw eight levels of 75-minute play and at the end of the day, it was Andrey Sharonov from Russia finishing atop the leaderboard. Sharonov built his starting stack of 30,000 to a whopping 278,600, claiming the overall chiplead for both Day 1a and 1b in the process. Closely following him are, among others, Marco Caza (262,000), Mikhail Molchanov (210,300), Quentin Roussey (170,000), Alin Grasu (190,000) and Miroslav Forman (171,000).
While most players were still trickling in at the start of the day, Vanessa Selbst was already on her way out. The Team PokerStars Pro shoved her king-high into Gaelle Baumann's set of aces, ending her Main Event run within the first hour. Day 1b also didn't favor Daniel Negreanu, Antoine Saout, Johnny Lodden, Sofia Lövgren, Robin Ylitalo, Andre Akkari, Jason Wheeler, Naoya Kihara, and Ismael Bojang, as they all headed to the rail.
A lot of notable players are still in contention, including William Kassouf (79,500), Kitty Kuo (75,200), Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen (73,300), Team PokerStars Pro's George Danzer (71,000), Felipe Ramos (70,700), Jake Cody (62,000) and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (34,100), Gaelle Baumann (63,300), Kristen Bicknell (57,300), Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo (55,600), Cate Hall (35,100), Jennifer Shahade (33,600), Viktor Blom (23,300), Xuan Liu (20,000), and Dzmitry Urbanovich (16,000).
Day 2 gets underway on Wednesday at 12 p.m. local time . The PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the action until our champion is crowned on Sunday.