With the Estrellas Main Event finally reaching the money, the short pace from earlier within the day has slowed somewhat as afternoon becomes evening, although the sphere is continuous to shrink at a heady clip. About 350 players remain with the dinner break a few level-and-a-half away.

Meanwhile other side action marks this Saturday in Spain, with a couple of different events playing out and a pair more silver spade trophies at the line. And the fields for those are big ones, too, topping previous bests for the events all around.

Tonight the last of sixth starting flights for the €300 Barcelona Cup could be playing out, which just like the ESPT Main Event is breaking a record in relation to turnout.

Unlike the Estrellas that is a freezeout, players can reenter successive flights of the Barcelona Cup (so long as they've busted). Each flight has played right down to 15% of the sphere and the money, and finally tomorrow all six flights' worth of survivors gets together for Day 2. Each flight have been bigger than the last, and with Flight 1F still to move they've already broken the Barcelona Cup record for total entries. To damage it down:

Flight A - 141 (21 made Day 2)Flight B - 229 (35)Flight C - 290 (44)Flight D - 431 (65)Flight E - 754 (113)

Flight F goes off in about an hour, with 990 players already registered.

Earlier this afternoon the €1K Seniors Event also got going, and there, too, a record have been broken.

With registration closed, 164 took part, among them many familiar faces from EPTs past including EPT9 Player of the Year Jan Bendik, EPT5 Prague Main Event winner Salvatore Bonavena, Konstantin Puchkov (who cashed a record 11 times within the 2012 WSOP), and two-time WSOP bracelet winner Roger Hairabedian.

Roger Hairabedian

That's just a part of an outstanding field on this one also including last year's Estrellas Poker Tour Player of the Year Heinz Traut, George McKeever, Dara O'Kearney, Jacques Torbey, Georges Yazbeck, Mikhail Korotkikh, Hossein Ensan, Yury Gulyy, and Michel Abecassis. About 80 players remain in that event on the moment.

Michel Abecassis

Also within the Seniors event field are France's 2014 Female Poker Player of the Year Florence Allera and WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown event winner Rachel Kranz, further strengthening the sector over there. Those two had a decision this afternoon, choosing the Seniors in preference to playing the €200 Women's Event that got started a bit later within the afternoon.

There were 148 women who did choose to play the development -- another record -- with a few former EPT Women's Event champs some of the field. Rosario Garzon, winner of the Women's Event at EPT11 Malta, is playing, as is last year's winner here, EPT11 Barcelona Women's Event champion Laura Gallardo. Two-time Women's Event winner Anais Lerouge may be a part of the field, and has already started accumulating.

Anais Lerouge

Kitty Kuo, Elisabeth Hille, and Lynn Gilmartin are playing.

Lynn Gilmartin

And Olga Iermolcheva is playing as well, not too far far from her second-place finish at LAPT8 Panama only a few months back.

Olga Iermolcheva

So much happening, and we're still two days from the EPT Main Event. And such jaw-dropping fields! It makes us wish to burst out in song, corresponding to they do on the Palau de la Música Catalana.

To get all of the latest news, chip counts and payouts from EPT12 Barcelona, be sure to download the EPT App on both Android or IOS.

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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Estrellas Poker Tour]