Season 9 of the European Poker Tour (EPT) is upon us and Sunday marked the start of its first Main Event. EPT Barcelona got underway this weekend with 403 players paying the €5,000 + €300 buy-in on Day 1A of the week-long tournament. Event organizers expect Monday’s Day 1B to see somewhere around 600 runners belly-up to the tables, so the Main Event may eclipse the 1,000 entrant mark. Setting the pace is Finland’s Aku Joentausta with 236,200 chips, one of just two players (Guy Thomas – 211,000) with over 200,000.
The Main Event is not the beginning of EPT Barcelona, as non-satellite side events started almost a week ago, but most poker fans know that Main Events are generally what people are referring to when talking about tours like the EPT. The Barcelona stop is one of just eight on the tour this season, down from 13 last year. While the EPT’s schedule has been pared down, the schedules at the tour stops have been expanded, creating much more of a poker “festival” atmosphere than in years past. Just counting from the kickoff of the Main Event, there are a dozen more events with at least a four-figure buy-in, including the 64-entrant capped €10,000 EPT 9 Heads-Up Championships.
Barcelona has traditionally been the season-opening city on the European Poker Tour, but has not been since Season 5. In Seasons 6 and 8, Barcelona was second and in Season 7, it was pushed all the way back to November, putting it fifth on the schedule. The city of Tallinn (Estonia) has led off the EPT the last two seasons, with Kiev receiving the honor in Season 6.
The current chip leader, Aku Joentausta, does not have many live poker tournament cashes of which to speak, but he has had some recent success. Of his five recorded cashes, he does have a victory. That came in a €4,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo Six-Max preliminary event at the 2011 EPT San Remo (Season 7). That one was worth €74,500, or over $100,000. He placed 94th in that same stop’s Main Event.
222 players remain after Day 1A and will have to wait until Tuesday’s Day 2 to play again. Some notable survivors include Lex Veldhuis, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Juha Helppi, John Juanda, 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Pius Heinz, Barny Boatman, and Leo Margets.
Day 1B of the European Poker Tour’s Barcelona stop is scheduled to begin at noon local time on Monday, August 20th and is slated to be filmed for television. That will be the last of the Day 1 flights and the survivors of both Sunday and Monday will combine into a single field on Tuesday. Once registration closes Monday, we will know the total registrant numbers and, in turn, the breakdown of the prize pool.
European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona – End of Day 1A Chip Leaders
1. Aku Joentausta – 236,200
2. Guy Thomas – 211,000
3. Emanoil Savin – 190,600
4. Mauro Canavese – 155,400
5. Lex Veldhuis – 148,800
6. Antonin Duda – 140,600
7. Dimitar Danchev – 138,100
8. Zimnan Ziyard – 137,900
9. Alexander Debus – 132,900
10. Samuel Rodriguez – 123,200
