EPT12 Barcelona, Day 3: Big Field, Big Stack, B-Day

The second Day 1 flight at the Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event drew about twice as many players as the first one did, and talk is that today there will be even more coming out, all of which is adding up to a 3,000-plus player field for the €1K event.

That’s way more than the 2,560 that played the same event last year, which was about 800 more than the number who played it the year before that, which was about 800 more than the number who played it the year before that. No shinola. The health of the EPT in general and poker in Barcelona in particular seems plenty strong at present, at least from where I’m sitting.

Not too much to report from yesterday’s Day 1b, another long and busy one for your humble scribbler. Sadly we didn’t get to go back to that tremendous buffet, which means the day’s gastronomical report is without much excitement.

Started noticing the young Spaniard Pablo Gordillo accumulating chips relatively early in the afternoon, mainly thanks to his having final tabled the France Poker Series Monaco event at the EPT Grand Final in May (an event I covered). That was kind of an analogue event to this Estrellas one -- a big Main for a local tour cross-listed with the EPT to help start the festival.

Gordillo was the chip leader late at FPS Monaco and appeared well on his way to winning there before running into misfortune to finish fourth. He’s already final tabled two EPT Main Events as well, despite only just turning 22 last week.

Sure enough, he continued to build and build as the day went on, and now is the overall chip leader in the event with one more Day 1 flight to go.

When midnight came those of us in the press room took note of the fact that it was the birthday of our friend Carlos Monti, the LAPT photographer with whom I’ve worked many times (and have shared stories about here more than once). There were hugs all around from Carlos, and someone produced a Mars bar and a couple of candles which worked nicely as a cake from which we all shared.

Heading back in again for this mammoth Day 1C of Estrellas. Keep visiting the PokerStars blog to follow how things go.