Ahadpur Khangah Leads After EPT Barcelona €100,000 Super High Roller Day 1
Ahadpur Khangah finished second in last year's EPT Barcelona €100,000 Super HIgh Roller, and is now in pole position to better that result after having bagged the chip lead at the end of Day 1.
This year's field is already larger than last year's, as 57 players jumped into the biggest buy-in event that EPT Barcelona has to offer.
Only two years ago, the largest buy-in event at the festival was a €50,000 Super High Roller, but with the changing High Roller landscape pushing buy-ins and payouts ever higher, a big field was almost expected today.
This has already generated a prize pool of over €5.5 million, but with late registration open until the start of Day 2, expect that number to grow further still.
Previous EPT Barcelona Super High Rollers
| Year | Buy-In | Entries | Prize Pool | Winner | First Prize (in EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | €50,000 | 64 | €3,072,960 | Dan Smith | €962,925 |
| 2013 | €50,000 | 51 | €2,448,765 | Vitaly Lunkin | €771,300 |
| 2014 | €50,000 | 77 | €3,697,155 | Olivier Busquet | €896,434 |
| 2015 | €50,000 | 99 | €4,753,485 | Sylvain Loosli | €1,224,000 |
| 2016 | €50,000 | 102 | €4,947,000 | Fedor Holz | €1,300,300 |
| 2017 | €50,000 | 86 | €4,129,290 | Igor Kurganov | €1,084,100 |
| 2018 | €100,000 | 54 | €5,239,080 | Mikita Badziakouski | €1,650,300 |
Chip Leaders
Teun Mulder was responsible for the first two eliminations of the day, with Michael Zhang and Daniel Dvoress eliminated, and he moved up to well over 650,000 in chips.
He enjoyed a quiet day from then on, content to relinquish the chip lead to the likes of Timothy Adams, Sam Grafton, Ahadpur Khangah and Sergio Aido, before regaining it in spectacular fashion late on.
He flopped two pair with ten-seven from the big blind to crack the pocket aces of Ben Heath and send the Brit to the rail. However, there was still time for last year's runner-up Khangah to fire back against the Dutchman, with the Iranian bagging the chip lead with 1,390,000 ahead of Mulder's 966,000.
EPT Monte Carlo €100,000 champion Sergio Aido bagged 852,000, with Michael Addamo (835,000) not far behind him.
Day 1 Eliminations
It wasn't such a good day for the aforementioned Zhang, who fired two bullets unsuccessfully, and he was joined on the rail by Joris Ruijs, Chris Hunichen, Ramin Hajiyev, Cary Katz and Vladimir Troyanovskiy.
Another player who busted on Day 1 was EPT Monte-Carlo €100,000 Super High Roller runner-up Jesus Cortes, who can still jump in at the start of Day 2 if he wants to better his result from earlier this year.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued coverage of the festival, including the €25,000 Short Deck High Roller, starting on the 25th August, and of course the €5,300 Main Event, starting on the 26th August.