Friday, 29th March 2024 07:45
Home / Uncategorized / So-so for Loic Sa who leads EPT Barcelona
ept-thumb-promo.jpg

Well what can you say about Day 1A? Neither incredibly dreary or up there with days never forgotten. It was a kind of concept album, released without fanfare and generally agreed to be not some of the band’s best work.

So if this is the sleeve note to that EPT then this day was unified by the theme of hole cards, featuring flourishes by the likes of Gomes and Pantaleo, and an overall narrative provided by Loic Sa.

For after nine levels, a dinner break, and several cups of tea, it is Sa who leads EPT Barcelona, bagging up 217,700 chips at the close as the headline player, the Mick Jagger to the rest of the field’s Charlie Watts.

loic_sa_d1a.jpg

Chip leader, Loic Sa

Sa had shown an insatiable appetite early on, breaching the 100,000 mark before some had signed off on image rights when he four bet Dermot Blain pre-flop on his way to making a diamond flush.

barcelona_ext_d1a.jpg

The ARTS Hotel in Barcelona

Behind him, in the Keith Richards role, was second-placed Yann Dion on 162,500. Those two lead the field overnight, the best of 137 survivors from a field of 263, to return for a Day 2 encore on Wednesday.

yann_dion_d1a.jpg

Yann Dion

Away from Sa there was some notable interludes. Soon after the start Alex Gomes put an end to Fatima Moreira de Melo’s day. She’d been in chipper mood when sitting down at the start but shortly after ran a full house into Alex Gomes’s royal flush, winding up on the rail shortly after. Then, in another highpoint close to the finish, Giuseppe Pantaleo and John O’Shea contested a pot worth 140,000, with Pantaleo holding pocket luck to topple the Irishman’s aces (See 10:53pm).

alex_gomes_d1a2.jpg

Alex Gomes

Alas, while there are good tunes and bad, there are winners and also losers, no-longer-needed session musicians to the Jaggers, and Richards… let’s forget it.

Those out of work today include several from the Team PokerStars Pro stable. Marcin Horecki, Ville Wahlbeck, Darus “don’t ask” Suharto and Richard Toth are all gone, as are Lex Veldhuis, Antony Lellouche, Jan Skampa, Pierre Neuville and Arnaud “Busto last hand” Mattern. The rest, returning for Day 2, are featured on the official chip count page.

ville_wahlbeck_d1a.jpg

Ville Wahlbeck

arnaud_mattern_bar_d1a2.jpg

Arnaud Mattern

Returning though will be, among others, Ruben Visser (46,100), Nuno Coelho (48,600), Andre Akkari (30,100), Alex Gomes (88,500), Henrique Pinho (71,400), Mathias de Meulder (47,500) and Michael Keiner (81,300).

andre_akkari_d1a.jpg

Andre Akkari

So that’s everything for Day 2. The fat lady has sung, the endless refrain on the 22-minute hidden track has finally run its course. Did we miss anything? If so it’s all in the links below.

Level 1 & 2 updates
Mr Bartley’s moustache
Level 3 & 4 updates
Level 5 & 6 updates
Level 7, 8 & 9 updates

Play resumes tomorrow when the players in the second flight, which we like to call Day 1B, will take their seats. The likes of Daniel Negreanu, Liv Boeree, Dario Minieri, Luca Pagano, Bertrand Grospellier and new boy Theo Jorgensen will be here to light a fire under proceedings.

In the meantime our thanks, as ever, to our foreign cousins blogging away furiously in all sorts of languages, which they tell us are Swedish, German, Dutch, Italian and Greek; although seriously, how the hell are we supposed to know? Thanks also to those who have made personal humiliation at least a profitable one.

that's enough of that_d1a.jpg

That’s enough of that

Join us tomorrow for a noon start. Until then we’re off our separate ways to do one of the following: watch Battlestar Galactica DVDs/ Harry Potter films/ eat turn down service chocolates/ put paper bags on our heads.

Goodnight from Barcelona.

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app