Australia's Michael Egan Leads Final Nine in €50,000 Super High Roller
Day 2 of the €50,000 Super High Roller has come and gone from the 2015 European Poker Tour Barcelona festival. At the start of the day, six more entries were tallied to bring the total number of buy-ins up to 99. A truly remarkable and record-breaking turnout, a prize pool of €4,753,485 was generated that will see the winner take home a hefty, jaw-dropping €1,224,000.
Fast forward to the end of the day. After 10 levels of play, just nine competitors remained. Leading the way into the third and final day was Australia's Michael Egan, as he bagged up 5,410,000 in chips. The player closest to Egan on the leaderboard was Christoph Vogelsang with 4,765,000 in chips.
Egan's climb to the top was powerfully smooth. He didn't just win one massive pot to catapult his stack to the top, but rather he raked in a high volume of larger pots to do the trick. On one such hand, Egan took out Mike McDonald in 12th place in the final level of the evening. The hand also involved Argentina's Ivan Luca that helped to contribute to the pot.
After Luca limped in from the hijack position, McDonald moved all in for 590,000 from the cutoff seat. Egan called from the small blind, and then Luca called to create a three-way affair worth about 1.8 million. The dealer fanned the 
flop, and the two active players checked to see the 
land on the turn. Egan bet 600,000, and Luca folded. That left McDonald and the 
up against the 
for Egan. The river completed the board with the 
, and Egan won the pot to send McDonald out the door in 12th place for €87,900.
Luca went on to bag up 2,580,000 in chips.
Also happening on Day 2 was the bursting of the bubble, which took place with 16 players remaining. To get down to that point, players such as Erik Seidel, Martin Jacobson, Dani Stern, Ole Schemion, Philipp Gruissem, Adrian Mateos, and John Juanda all fell, but the player most unfortunate to miss out on a payday was Russia's Viacheslav Buldygin.
Buldygin was all in on the bubble of the tournament with the 
against the 
for Fedor Holz. The 
board kept Holz in the lead and sent Buldygin packing as the official "bubble boy."
Holz ended up placing 11th for €99,800.
Others finishing in the money were Igor Kurganov (15th - €80,800), Stephen Chidwick (14th - €80,800), Max Altergott (13th - €87,900), and Ben Tollerene (€99,800).
Along with Egan, Vogelsang, and Luca, high-stakes talent such as Dzmitry Urbanovich, JC Alvarado, Steve O'Dwyer, Paul Newey, Sylvain Loosli, and Byron Kaverman remain. They'll all be returning for action at 12:30 p.m. local time on Monday guaranteed at least €123,600, and you can be sure to find continued coverage of it all right here on PokerNews.com. Remember that there's €1,224,000 up top and this is a final table you surely don't want to miss!
To hold you over until the finale of this one, check out an interview with another winner from the EPT Barcelona festival, former PokerNews hostess and producer, Lynn Gilmartin.