Caminita Tops 31 Day 1a Survivors; Moorman and Lovgren Advance
The first of three starting days of the 2019 888poker LIVE Barcelona €1,100 Main Event is in the books and the tournament is well on track to surpass the guaranteed prize pool of €550,000 at Casino Barcelona. Day 1a is usually considered as the weakest flight and still managed to attract 109 entries, of which 31 players bagged up chips after 12 levels of 45 minutes each and already secured their seat for Day 2.
With a dominance of Spanish and Italian players in the Day 1a field, is comes as no surprise that one of them claimed the top spot overnight. In fact, it may very well turn out to be a difficult task to better the impressive performance of Demetrio Caminita, who established a commanding lead in the first flight and bagged up 426,000 - more than 14 times the starting stack of 30,000.
Michail Tastanis, who scored a double in the final hands of the day, follows well behind with 243,000 and there is another solid gap to a duo in third place including 888poker online qualifier Mikael Johansson and Juan Bastida Perez (156,500 each). Other notables that advanced include the two Dutchmen David Hu (153,500) and Zhong Chen (139,500), Sergi Escote (139,000), 2017 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event champion Marti Roca de Torres (100,500), Ramlal Basdeo (89,000), Francesco Delfoco (85,000), and Maya Geller (79,500).
Four 888poker ambassadors joined the action and two of them made it through Day 1a in Chris Moorman (121,000) and Sofia Lovgren (45,000). In the final level of the night, Moorman sent Tom-Aksel Bedell to the rail in order to claim an above-average stack to his name. For Ana Marquez and Martin Jacobson, the fortune was not on their side and both hit the rail in the late stages. Marquez lost a flip with ace-five against the pocket fours of Johansson.
Other familiar faces of the popular mid-stakes circuit that will have to take another shot at making Day 2 include Salvatore Camarda, Gabriel Podovei, Sergio Alonso, former EPT Main Event champion Kevin Stani, Luca Marchetti, Casey Kastle, Milad Oghabian and Carmen Zainescu.
The rise to the top of Caminita culminated in the final two levels of the night. First he won a flip with jacks against the ace-king of fellow Italian Francesco Di Profio, then had a value bet with top two pair paid and continued to rake in even more chips until it was time to bag and tag them for the night. Caminita sits in excellent shape to have a serious shot at the added 2019 WSOP Main Event package, courtesy by sponsor 888poker for the eventual champion of the flagship tournament of the festival.
A brief recap of the €2,200 High Roller and final result will also be published before the cards go back in the air at Casino Barcelona. At 6 p.m. local time on Friday, May 31st, 2019, the second starting day gets underway and the PokerNews live reporting team will once again provide all the action from the tables.
against the 
of Mikael Johansson.
and the 888poker ambassador found no help to join the rail late on Day 1a.
to deal the final blow to the Casino Barcelona regular.
for a straight and had to fork over 36,300 to forfeit a decent portion of his stack.
and Hannemann showed plenty of frustration, as he would have gotten there for a triple knockout.
turn, Carmen Zainescu made it 4,000 to go with around 5,500 behind and Sergio Alonso glanced over, then made the call while the other two players folded.
for top set and Alonso had that beat with 
for a back door flush.
turn, Faskowicz bet 10,700 and Di Profio came along to see the 
for flopped trips fives.
river followed.
for a flush.