The start of Day 2 at EPT11 Barcelona presented us all with a problem. There were 889 players who had earned the right to join the action — either after playing through eight levels on Day 1 or buying directly in today — and it was panic stations in Tournament Director HQ.
Although everything was cool fitting players in today, spilled into two overflow rooms, the problem was what was going to happen tomorrow when a new schedule of side events was due to begin. There was heated talk about adding an extra level on to today’s play in order to trim some more players off of the flabby belly. It would have meant a dinner break too and a host of unhappy punters rescheduling plans for their early night.
But, but, but… this is the European Poker Tour we’re talking about, where people don’t hang around on Day 2. Sure enough, by the time the tournament clock ticked into Level 12, the fourth of the day, there were fewer than 550 players left and they were all in the same room for the first time all tournament.
Twenty minutes into that level, it was down to 522. That’s how quickly things were going. Plans for the extra level were abandoned as superfluous.
Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was on to EPT television stage, and was doing as much as anyone to bludgeon through the field. The Grinder has one of the most ill-fitting nicknames of any player in poker because he style is about as far away from a grind as one can find. In a discussion on this very subject, as he built his stack up to around 300,000, other suggested nick-names included “The Pounder” and “The Batterer”. That’s just his way.
For all of Mizrachi’s relentless pummelling, he was not the tournament chip leader. Lurking in a dark corner of the room, in the shadow of the television set, Vojtech Ruzicka had amassed a stack of close to 350,000.
I walked over to take a look at the EPT Deauville High Roller champion and saw an enormous stack of blue chips pressed into action over the betting line after action had folded to him in the small blind. The man in the big blind quietly folded, not willing to put his whole tournament at risk. There’s something of the Grinder about Ruzicka too.
Martin Finger had a bunch (at least 250,000). Ole Schemion too. Daniel Negreanu had been up and down through the first few levels, up to 90,000 then down to 50,000. But that was better than the likes of Liv Boeree, Ivan Demidov, Fabian Quoss, Bryn Kenney and Dermot Blain, who were all out.
That’s a double shame for them because they are missing out on the chance to stake a claim for one of the largest prize pools the EPT has ever seen. As has been documented, this tournament is a record breaker and the first prize is €1,261,000.
We’re paying 239 players this time around, with a min-cash worth €8,050. Here’s the full prize-pool breakdown.
1st €1,261,000
2nd €709,000
3rd €498,000
4th €362,000
5th €286,600
6th €224,500
7th €171,600
8th €121,300
9th €92,800
10-11th €77,600
12 – 13th €69,300
14 – 15th €62,000
16 – 17th €54,700
18 – 20th €47,400
21 – 23rd €40,200
24 – 27th €33,300
28 – 31st €28,500
32 – 39th €24,400
40 – 55th €20,300
56 – 71st €16,300
72 – 95th €13,900
96 – 119th €12,050
120 – 143rd €10,300
144 – 183rd €9,300
184 – 223rd €8,500
224 – 239th €8,050
Mad Harper, the EPT Media Coordinator, has also analysed the make-up of the tournament field and broken it down by nationalities. Germany was the best represented country here, providing 170 (11 per cent) of the total field. Our hosts provided 92 players.
(Country, players, percent of field)
Germany 170 11%
France 118 8%
Russia 106 7%
UK 95 6%
Spain 92 6%
USA 66 4%
Italy 64 4%
Netherlands 57 4%
Canada 56 4%
Sweden 55 4%
Poland 41 3%
Israel 37 2%
Denmark 35 2%
Finland 33 2%
Portugal 30 2%
Romania 29 2%
Belgium 27 2%
Austria 26 2%
Norway 26 2%
Ukraine 24 2%
Brazil 23 2%
Bulgaria 20 1%
Estonia 20 1%
Greece 20 1%
Argentina 19 1%
Switzerland 18 1%
Hungary 15 1%
Ireland 15 1%
Lithuania 15 1%
Lebanon 14 1%
Belarus 12 1%
Czech Republic 12 1%
China 10 1%
Turkey 10 1%
Mexico 8 1%
Slovakia 8 1%
Less than 1% of field:
Azerbaijan, Australia, Japan, Cyprus, Uruguay, Croatia, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, Serbia, Slovenia, Chile, Colombia, Morocco, New Zealand, Algeria, Andorra, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Montenegro, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Venezuela, Vietnam.
To put it another way:
Follow all the action from the tournament floor on the main EPT Barcelona page. There’s hand-by-hand coverage in the panel at the top, including chip counts, and feature pieces below. There’s also EPT Live, which is streaming action from Day 2 of the Main Event.
Back to Top
