With around 55,000 in the middle heading to the turn, the board read . Patrik Antonius and Kazuhiko Yotsushika were heads-up as the dealer burned and turned the .
It took a couple of raises before the two players got all of their chips in the middle and it was Antonius who was at risk for 157,000. He didn't have much to sweat once the cards were tabled as Antonius showed while Yotsushika held .
Yotsushika was left drawing to only a chop after making the bottom end of the straight and the on the river was not going to cut it. Antonius found a double up to move over starting stack for the first time today.
Ben Heath and Teun Mulder were heads-up in a pot with the board reading . With around 90,000 in the middle, Mulder led out for 100,000 from the big blind. Heath called from under the gun and the completed the board.
Mulder used up a time extension before announcing all in, putting Heath to the test for his remaining 315,000 chips. Heath also used his last time bank before splashing in some chips to indicate a call.
Mulder flipped over for two pair while Heath could only muster one pair with . Mulder cracked the aces to scoop the largest pot of the day and take over the chip lead.
Joining a pot on a board, there was already 150,000 in chips in the pot between Danny Tang, situated in the small blind, and Kahle Burns on the button.
Both players checked and the river was the . Tang eventually checked and Burns snap-checked behind.
Tang showed and Burns pulled a face.
"I've got you in jail on the flop," said Burns. "Absolute jail."
Tsugunari Toma opened to 12,000 from the hijack and Isaac Haxton defended from the big blind. The flop fell and Haxton checked-called a bet of 23,000 from Toma.
The turn was the and Haxton tapped the table again. Toma didn't want to let the hand go any further as he jammed all in for around 200,000. Haxton wasted little time before dumping his cards to the muck and Toma raked in the pot.
Danny Tang bet 22,000 out of the small blind on a turn. Oleksii Khoroshenin called in the big blind and Bryn Kenney then raised to 57,000 in late position. Tang quickly folded.
Khoroshenin tanked, pushing out two time extensions at once. He quickly burned his way through those and pushed out his last time extension. After that was used up, he folded and Kenney took down the pot.
Ahadpur Khangah finished second in last year's EPT Barcelona €100,000 Super HIgh Roller, and is now in pole position to better that result after having bagged the chip lead at the end of Day 1.
This year's field is already larger than last year's, as 57 players jumped into the biggest buy-in event that EPT Barcelona has to offer.
Only two years ago, the largest buy-in event at the festival was a €50,000 Super High Roller, but with the changing High Roller landscape pushing buy-ins and payouts ever higher, a big field was almost expected today.
This has already generated a prize pool of over €5.5 million, but with late registration open until the start of Day 2, expect that number to grow further still.
Previous EPT Barcelona Super High Rollers
Year
Buy-In
Entries
Prize Pool
Winner
First Prize (in EUR)
2012
€50,000
64
€3,072,960
Dan Smith
€962,925
2013
€50,000
51
€2,448,765
Vitaly Lunkin
€771,300
2014
€50,000
77
€3,697,155
Olivier Busquet
€896,434
2015
€50,000
99
€4,753,485
Sylvain Loosli
€1,224,000
2016
€50,000
102
€4,947,000
Fedor Holz
€1,300,300
2017
€50,000
86
€4,129,290
Igor Kurganov
€1,084,100
2018
€100,000
54
€5,239,080
Mikita Badziakouski
€1,650,300
Chip Leaders
Teun Mulder was responsible for the first two eliminations of the day, with Michael Zhang and Daniel Dvoress eliminated, and he moved up to well over 650,000 in chips.
He enjoyed a quiet day from then on, content to relinquish the chip lead to the likes of Timothy Adams, Sam Grafton, Ahadpur Khangah and Sergio Aido, before regaining it in spectacular fashion late on.
He flopped two pair with ten-seven from the big blind to crack the pocket aces of Ben Heath and send the Brit to the rail. However, there was still time for last year's runner-up Khangah to fire back against the Dutchman, with the Iranian bagging the chip lead with 1,390,000 ahead of Mulder's 966,000.
EPT Monte Carlo €100,000 champion Sergio Aido bagged 852,000, with Michael Addamo (835,000) not far behind him.
Day 1 Eliminations
It wasn't such a good day for the aforementioned Zhang, who fired two bullets unsuccessfully, and he was joined on the rail by Joris Ruijs, Chris Hunichen, Ramin Hajiyev, Cary Katz and Vladimir Troyanovskiy.
Another player who busted on Day 1 was EPT Monte-Carlo €100,000 Super High Roller runner-up Jesus Cortes, who can still jump in at the start of Day 2 if he wants to better his result from earlier this year.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued coverage of the festival, including the €25,000 Short Deck High Roller, starting on the 25th August, and of course the €5,300 Main Event, starting on the 26th August.