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Saturday, January 2, 2016

ESPT6: Jose Carlos Garcia captures lead to conclude Day 2 of Estrellas Main

A long Day 2 has come to a close in the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event, a day that saw the 984 returners play all of the way down to 98 players. Jose Carlos Garcia, who has been collecting deep finishes all over the tour this year, grabbed the chip lead during the late afternoon today, and by night's end still had the biggest stack in the room with 3,752,000.

Jose Carlos Garcia

After a head-spinning first three hours in which 500 players were eliminated, the day's fourth hour was especially slow as the bubble and hand-for-hand play inched along lengthily until at last the money was reached.

At that point Team PokerStars Pro Online Liliya Novikova had chipped up into the lead with 487 players left, though soon she and everyone else saw Jose Carlos Garcia -- one of several young poker phenoms from Poland -- surge ahead of all and into the chip lead as the field winnowed further. Novikova would slip during the night's latter levels but still make it through with 671,000, a bit better off than the lone surviving member of Team PokerStars Pro, Andre Akkari, who ended with 325,000.

Some late drama at Nikolay Fal's table during one of the day's final hands appeared as though it might result in Garcia losing his chip lead. Up against two opponents he had outchipped, Fal made it to the turn on an A-2-7-K board at which point the stacks went in. One showed a set of deuces, the other a set of sevens, and Fal two kings for a turned best set. His hand held, and after bagging time arrived it was found he had 3,302,000.

Nikolay Fal

John Forst (3.08 million), Mario Lopez (2.455 million), and Daniel Selles (2.413 million) also sealed away massive stacks at the end of play.

Mario Lopez

Also still in contention are Jude Ainsworth (1.6 million), Hugo Pingray (1.092 million), Peter Trapley (849,000), Sebastien Sabic (801,000), Scott Montgomery (792,000), Dermot Blain (704,000), and Joao Barbosa (290,000) likewise finished still in contention. Click here for a full list of chip counts for the remaining 98 players.

To perform a quick sweep of the other late action before we sign off, the Barcelona Cup's Flight 1F -- the sixth and last starting flight for the event -- still occupied most of the middle portion of the poker room at our last check, with 460 players out of a starting field of 1,162 continuing their battle to join the other flights' survivors for tomorrow's Day 2.

Meanwhile on the room's other side three other events were in action as the Estrellas Main Event wound down for the day.

Both the Women's Event and the Seniors Event were down to about two dozen players each. The Seniors drew 164 players to build a bigger prize pool of €159,080 with €39,990 due the champ. That one will finish out during a second day tomorrow.

The Women's drew 148 players, creating a prize pool of €28,712 with €6,890 up top. They'll be playing down to a winner later tonight.

The Women's event continues

And in the far corner, the €5K Hyperturbo satellite to the already begun Super High Roller -- that "reverse freeroll" (so to speak) -- was still in progress at last look. They drew 43 players with 12 re-entries, with the event thus awarding SHR seats to the final five finishers.

Come back mañana as Day 3 of the Estrellas Main picks back up at 12 noon CET, with Day 2 of the €50K Super High Roller starting a half-hour later and a host of other side action playing out as well including the €2K Estrellas High Roller.

Until then, buenos noches!