EPT Barcelona festival has potential to shake up Live League
While the tournament room in Barcelona is full to the rafters with players competing at the very highest level, arguably the most keenly-fought contest in poker is taking place in an adjacent setting.
The PokerStars Live League has now been running for five months, ever since the PokerStars Open in Campione in March, and its leader boards are proving to be quite the battleground.
There’s good reason for that. This is the contest with more than €250,000 in bonuses up for grabs, including a year’s contract as a Team PokerStars Ambassador, worth €100K.
It’s really a phenomenal contest, the likes of which PokerStars has never offered before. There are massive prizes up for grabs for the top 10 players in three tiers — low, medium and high — and players of all statuses are taking it very seriously indeed.
Read more about the PokerStars Live League
Coming into this massive EPT Barcelona festival, Italy’s Enrico Camosci had a narrow lead over Austria’s Klemens Roiter at the top of the High leader board. That all changed when Roiter followed up an eighth-placed finish in a €20K Single-Day event with an outright victory in the €30K Super High Roller Warm Up.
Klemens Roiter leads the High leader board
Though Camosci hit back with a fourth in a separate €25K event, Roiter is now back at the top of the leader board — albeit by a narrow 12-point margin. At time of writing, Roiter has 2,040 points to Camosci’s 2,028.
These guys may be high rollers, but the leader board is on their mind. A couple of days ago, our roving cameras caught the pair discussing their relative positions in the leader board, and how they can maximise their chances.
As you would expect, the High tier pays the most to its eventual top three. The first prize is €62,400 in tournament buy-ins (four EPT Main Events and four EPT High Rollers), with second place taking €21,200 in buy-ins and third worth €10,600.
SENIOR’S VICTORY FIRES DI GIACOMO
Italy’s Claudio Di Giacomo celebrated a tremendous victory, worth close to €50,000, in the €3,250 NLH Senior’s High Roller here in Barcelona. But it may turn out to be even more valuable as it vaulted him to the summit of the Medium PokerStars Live League leader board.
Before this festival started, Di Giacomo had previously sat in fifth place in the standings, but is now ahead of both Gerard Rubiralta and Kenny Hallaert at the top of the Medium tier.
Victory for Claudio Di Giacomo put him on top of the Medium tier
The Medium leader board pays €25,600 in buy-ins to its winner, with the runner-up earning €6,600 and the third-placed finisher taking €3,300.
CUP OFFERS HUGE POINTS BONUS
Committed leader board watchers have eyed the €825 PokerStars Cup here in Barcelona in the knowledge that it would award the highest number of points so far in the Low tier. This is the tier for tournaments with a maximum buy-in of €999, and so the Cup, with its €825 buy-in, was near the top. It also invariably attracts an enormous field.
So it proved here in Barcelona, where there were 1,894 entries. None of the top 10 in the leader board ahead of this event cashed in the Cup, but Alexander Ivarsson’s victory was enough to propel the Swede all the way up to ninth.
There are some very seasoned leader board veterans riding high in the low tier. Perennial PokerStars qualifier Soraya Estrada is currently third, marginally behind former UKIPT Player of the Year David Doherty.
They’re both looking up at Iceland’s Steinn Thanh Du Karlsson, whose excellent showing in Campione and Namur keeps him at the top of the charts. Du Karlsson has 667 points at time of writing, with Docherty’s 464 ahead of Estrada’s 453.
Steinn Thanh Du Karlsson still tops the Low
They’re all well in contention still for a first prize of €15,000 in buy-ins, followed by a second prize of €4,000 and a third-place prize of €2,000 in buy-ins.
LATEST STANDINGS
HIGH
1 – Klemens Roiter (Austria) – 2,040 pts2 – Enrico Camosci (Italy) – 2,028
3 – Alisson Piekazewicz (Brazil) – 1,33
4 – Christopher Nguyen (Austria) – 1,215
5 – Jesse Lonis (USA) – 1,100
MEDIUM
1 – Claudio Di Giacomo (Italy) – 1,362 pts
2 – Gerard Rubiralta (Spain) – 1,319
3 – Kenny Hallaert (Belgium) – 1,450
4 – Mengshi Tian (Hong Kong) – 1,192
5 – Luke Marsh (United Kingdom) – 1,123
LOW
1 – Steinn Du Karlsson (Iceland) – 667 pts
2 – David Docherty (UK) – 464
3 – Soraya Estrada (Spain) – 453
4 – Thomas Clack (UK) – 449
5 – Andreas Froehli (Switzerland) – 435
Anyone who finishes in the top 10 of any of the three tiers stands a chance of winning the PokerStars Ambassador contract. After the leader boards are finalised, those 30 players will then begin an application process to land the very top prize. There are plenty of hurdles to jump, but someone has to win it!
For more information on how points are awarded, download the PokerStars Live app on the App Store or Google Play to check out the PokerStars Live League calculator.
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