The European Poker Tour started yesterday at the famous Casino Barcelona and today, it gathered plenty of familiar faces for the opening €10,300 High Roller. Among the regulars and hot poker pros are the “power couple” Kristen Bicknell and Alex Foxen, Sam Greenwood, and soccer star Gerard Pique.
PokerStars hosts the 2018 EPT Barcelona at Casino Barcelona for the 15th time and players from all around the world are now arriving at the beautiful Spanish city for a total of 34 events. The 13-day festival runs through September 2, with several major tournaments on the schedule, including the EPT National, the EPT Super High Roller, and the EPT Main Event. There are several high-roller events, as well, and the first one has already made up for an adrenaline boost for everyone present at the casino.
The opening high-roller tournament of the European Poker Tour festivals traditionally draws in a lot of regular players big names. Today, Day 1 of the €10,300 High Roller started at noon with 10 levels of 60 minutes each and players got starting stacks of 50,000. Each entrant receives 6 time bank cards of 30 seconds each at the start of play, while at the start of Day 2, as well as at the final table, they will be given 3 additional bank cards of 30 seconds each. The tournament allows a single re-entry.
Day 1 kicked off with 15 entries right from the start, including Matthias Eibinger, Orpen Kisacikoglu, Ben Heath, Quan Zhou and the two Americans Kyle Keranen and James Romero. The popular couple making furor in live tournaments during the past months, Canadian Kristen Bicknell and US player Alex Foxen also joined the field, while the poker-playing twins Sam and Luc Greenwood were an even greater surprise. Other entries include Dmitrii Vasilev, Dietrich Fast, Adrian Mateos, Daniel Dvoress and football star Gerard Pique.
Gerard Pique Shows Potential
After the second break of Day 1 of the €10,300 High Roller, a total of 75 players have registered, 65 of whom have remained in the competition. PokerStars Team Pros Liv Boeree, Igor Kurganov, and Andre Akkari also bought into the event, along with Stephen Chidwick, and Thomas Muehloecker. When players return for level 5, they will be led by Grzegorz Grochulski who has the biggest stack of 120,000, followed closely by Pique with 115,000 in chips and Mustapha Kanit, who has 110,000.
Of course, it is still too early to make predictions but so far, the Spanish professional footballer shows some great skills and potential on the felt. There are also several Canadian players in the field, including Jean Ferreira (90,000), Daniel Dvoress (70,000), Sam Greenwood (59,000), Luc Greenwood (50,000), and Timothy Adams (26,500).
The High Roller champion will be crowned Friday, on the third and final day of the tournament.
