2018 888poker LIVE Festival Barcelona

After nearly 11 hours of play, Spain's Joel Isla heads into the final day of the 2018 888poker LIVE Barcelona €1,100 Main Event at Casino Barcelona in the chip lead with 27 players remaining with 2,015,000 in chips.

Regardless of how Isla finishes the event, he will at least double his career cashes according to The Hendon Mob.

His only recorded cash prior to the Main Event came in a Spanish tournament in September 2017 when he took a fourth-place prize of €2,150.

Isla's closest competitors are Spain's Adria Diaz Dalmau (second - 1,662,000), French Day 1a chip leader Gianny Dominique Morano (third - 1,466,000), American Mark Max McMillin (fourth - 1,413,000), and Canadian poker streamer Courtney Gee (fifth - 1,385,000).

The day began with 201 hopefuls competing, which included 196 players bagging chips during the three opening flights and five more players that bought in for 10 big blinds after the end of play yesterday and before the start of Day 2.

Eliminations took place to start the day at a fast and furious pace. One of the early eliminations was 888poker Ambassador Parker Talbot, who got it all in for close to 25 big blinds with ace-king on an ace-king-ten flop and wasn't able to get lucky after his opponent called with a straight with queen-jack.

Payouts were announced after the first break with 72 players in the field guaranteed to walk away with €3,400 or more than triple the buy-in.

It was also announced that the winner is slated to win a massive €140,550 top prize, a sizeable increase of the €110,000 won in this event last year by Italy's Luigi Andrea Shehadeh. The Italian has a chance to become a back-to-back champ in Barcelona as he is still in the field bringing forth a 10th place chip stack of 953,000 into the final day tomorrow.

The bubble burst shortly before the dinner break after Andrea De Georgio got it all-in with ace-king and his hand couldn't hold against the ace-jack held by Tomasz Aleksander Chmiel with jacks spiking the flop and the river.

While the duo was waiting for the hand to be played out, De Georgio told his opponent, "If I don't win this, I hope you do."

De Georgio's wishes are still alive as Chmiel heads into tomorrow with an eighth-place stack of 1,115,000.

Shortly after the bubble broke, Turkish high roller Orpen Kisacikoglu (64th - €3,300), who entered the day as the chip leader, and 888poker Ambassador Martin Jacobson (63rd - €3,540), who won the WSOP Main Event in 2014, were both eliminated.

The day ended after Jon Kyte got short on the feature table and unsuccessfully jammed 11 big blinds with pocket fives against the sevens held by Dalmau.

The final day begins Monday, June 4 at 2 p.m. CEST at the beginning of Level 22 with blinds at 12,000/24,000 with an ante of 3,000. As was the case today, blind levels go up slowly with increases taking place every hour of play. All remaining players are guaranteed a payday of at least €4,750.

Stay tuned at PokerNews as we bring you the conclusion of the 888poker LIVE Barcelona Main Event.

*Lead image courtesy of Gema Cristobal.

Players are indeed still on break but when they are back they will be bagging chips. On the feature table on the last hand before break, Adria Diaz Dalmau opened for 42,000 and Jon Kyte jammed for 240,000.

Dalmau had and Kyte dominated with . The board ran out blanks for Kyte and he finished in 28th place for €4,360.

Stay tuned for the recap and an update of the chip counts of the final 27 players.

Joel Isla has been chipping up the past hour and is at around 1.9 million. He will be taking the seat of one of the handful of eliminations at the feature table with the latest casualty being Jhen Siang Jian (29th - €4,360), who wasn't at the feature table long himself replacing another eliminated player.

Players are now on a 15-minute break. The day will end when two more eliminations or two more blind levels are played, whichever comes first.

Luigi Andrea Shehadeh opened to 44,000. Ankit Ahuja three-bet to 120,000. Shehadeh let his time bank wind down before he four-bet jammed for almost 900,000.

Ahuja wasted no time and immediately called.

Ankit Ahuja:
Luigi Andrea Shehadeh:

The board ran out . Shehadeh breathed a loud sigh of relief in what seemed to be comedy. But after all, everyone loves a chop.

American Mark Max McMillin is now in the chip lead. It hasn't been due to any recent big pots, he has been just chipping away at his opponents.

In one recent hand, he called a bet of 35,000 from a late position raiser from the big blind. Both players checked the flop before McMillin led out for 50,000 when the appeared on the turn.

McMillin went all-in for over a million, well covering his opponent's stack of 300,000 and got a fold.

Sometimes, players can build a stack by winning a few big pots and sometimes a bunch of small ones quickly add up.

Pawel Karol Brzeski was never able to get much of anything going today but was able to climb up the payout ladders a bit. His day is now down after three-bet shoving about eight big blinds with into Jhen Siang Jian's late position raise with .

The board ran out all blanks and Brzeski hit the rail in 39th place for €4,000.

Stian Knutsen was in the chip lead in the early part of the day but then stagnated before losing some chips to his opponents. Knutsen just got about 250,000 back after triple barrelling on a and getting a fold of from his opponent after the final bet of 150,000.