The biggest starting day of the €10,300 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Grand Final Barcelona Main Event in the Casino Barcelona is over after twelve levels of play. This third starting day brought 383 players to the poker tables today who all coughed up the €10,300 buy-in to have a shot at taking home their share of that €10,000,000 guaranteed prize pool. Only 110 players have managed to find a bag at the end day and the player with the most chips in their bag is Morten Mortensen with 11,655,000 in chips.
This also means that Mortensen takes the overall chip lead right now if it’s compared to the chip counts over Day 1a and 1b. Only slightly trailing in second place in the chip counts is Sergey Lebedev with 11,350,000. And closing the podium is Ramin Hajiyev with 9,970,000 who won most of those chips in a preflop six-betted pot to eliminate Alexandros Papadopoulos from the tournament.
Other notable players to keep an eye on include Alexander Ivarsson (9,970,000), Andras Nemeth (6,850,000), Carlo Savinelli (6,835,000), €100k Super High Roller winner Jake Schindler (5,975,000), and Team partypoker member Isaac Haxton with 5,330,000 in chips.
As expected, the crème de la crème of poker was in full force today, but not everyone was lucky enough to make it through and have had to try their luck again. Players like Fabrice Soulier, Pierre Merlin, Romain Lewis, Michael Zhang, Igor Yaroshevskyy, Paul Hoefer, Bryan Piccioli, Mike Leah, Martin Finger, Georgios Sotiropoulos, Rainer Kempe, Joni Jouhkimainen, Maria Lampropulos, Kalidou Sow, Anthony Zinno and Maria Ho.
The 110 players that survived Day 1c will come together with the 133 players from Day 1a and 1b, and whoever survives Day 1d, for Day 2 at 13:00 local time on Friday, April 13th. They will start playing Level 13 which has a small blind of 35,000, big blind of 70,000 and a button ante of 70,000. Levels will increase to 60 minutes each and eight levels of play have been scheduled.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be there, as usual, to provide you with all the Main Event action from the start until the end!
Alexandros Papadopoulos raised to 125,000 from early position. Ramin Hajiyev three-bet to 300,000 from the hijack. Konstantinos Nanos four-bet to 925,000. Papadopoulos five-bet shoved for about 3,000,000. Hajiyev checked out Nanos' stack and decided to six-bet shove with the bigger stack. Nanos tanked, he put his hand in his hair and then decided to fold with a lot of frustration.
Alexandros Papadopoulos:
Ramin Hajiyev:
The board ran out - Hajiyev's kings held and Papadopoulos got up from the table, shook Hajiyev's hand and left the tournament area.
On the board and about 350,000 in the middle, Isaac Haxton had checked from early position. Pierre Morin bet 235,000 and Haxton called after thinking for a minute.
Before the dealer even dealt the on the river to complete the board Morin looked at Haxton from behind the dealer. Haxton noticed it, thinking Morin wanted to see how much Haxton was playing. But Morin just wanted to look at Haxton. When the dealer leaned back to make it easier for them to look at each other, Morin put his scarf up a bit to hide the bottom part of his face.
Haxton just checked. Morin looked at his own stack and then shoved for 965,000 in total. Haxton tanked, looked at the board a few times, he even looked around the dealer again to see if he could get a tell from the bottom part of Morin's body. He looked at the board again and then folded.
Just before the level went up, Michael Zhang three-bet from 32,000 to 106,000 out of the small blind and Ihar Soika called from under the gun. On the flop, Zhang continued for 80,000 and was called before firing 250,000 on the turn, again Soika called.
After the river, Zhang shoved for 700,000, just under pot size, and Soika snap-called. Zhang wanted to muck his cards, but as per all in showdown his were revealed. Soika had rivered a straight with and raked in the big pot.
The chips went flying on the same table soon after. Alexander Lynskey three-bet from 35,000 to 120,000 while in the small blind and Paul Hoefer four-bet to 260,000. The initial raiser folded and Lynskey jammed for 566,000, Hoefer called.
Alexander Lynskey:
Paul Hoefer:
The board of brought no upset and the Aussie doubled.
After a raise to 31,000 and two callers, Angelo Solinas moved all in for his last 326,000 and Sean Winter moved all in over the top, having everyone at the table comfortably covered. The isolation was successful and Winter headed into the heads-up showdown with Solinas.
Angelo Solinas:
Sean Winter:
The board of improved Winter to queens and sevens, and he bumped up his stack further.
One table over are quite a few notables in contention including Fabio Sperling, Paul-Francois Tedeschi, Niall Farrell, Michal Lubas, Darryll Fish, Marius Pertea and Thi Nguyen. Tedeschi is in early trouble with fewer than half the starting stack remaining.
Joao Simao has had a flying start into 2018 after reaching multiple final tables and more than doubling his earnings on the live circuit to shoot up all the way to $2 million in cashes, claiming the fifth place on the Brazilian all-time money list. The 29-year-old partypoker ambassador from Belo Horizonte, who now lives in Florianopolis / Brazil, is married to Luiza Pillar Simão. Luiza is also playing poker as well, representing partypoker team ladies and team online, and made the trip over to Barcelona.
When asked about his recent run-good, he had the following to say. “For sure I have luck also, but I spent the last 18 months in the hospital with my kids and I couldn't play too much, but I could study and I am sure that I improved my game a lot during this time. After such a hard situation, you are happy with everything and I am sure that my mental game is stronger than ever. I also feel very comfortable to play in the high stakes games.”
While the online tables used to be his main realm, Simao has since found the transition. “I used to play online a lot, and not any high stakes live. In Brazil the live tournaments don't have a big buy-in, and I travel so far. It is hard, I have two kids, and my wife at home, so I just travel when I can bring my family together.”
That bond seems to have given Simao wings, and his results of the current year are as follows:
Event
Final Position
Payout
MILLIONS Germany €25,500 Super High Roller I
2nd place
€251,250
MILLIONS Germany €25,500 Super High Roller II
4th place
€110,000
MILLIONS Germany €2,700 Warm Up
29th place
€6,500
MILLIONS Germany €5,300 Main Event
4th place
€280,000
Latin American Poker Championship Punta del Este $5,300 High Roller
2nd place
$50,000
Latin American Poker Championship Punta del Este $1,100 Main Event
4th place
$60,000
MILLIONS Grand Final Barcelona €51,000 Super High Roller
6th place
€160,000
During the $5,300 High Roller in Punta del Este, there was a special twist on the final table and his mental game was put to the test, as Luiza was there and finished in third place. “I had my wife on the Super High Roller final table and also one of my horses from my stable and very good friend. I don't want to exploit those guys, I like my wife and my friend very well. It was very tough to play, but as we said in every break, our honesty is more important than everything.”
And indeed down to the last three, Joao and Luiza clashed with the better end for Joao. “Unfortunately I had to bust my wife, it wasn't fun but it's part of the game.” There was no adjustment needed for the strategy according to the Brazilian poker pro. “My strategy was the same, but my wife knows my game very well, she knows what I am doing. It is tough to play with her, I don't like to play with friends or horses at the same table. But I am happy that we made this final table together.”
Speaking of horses, not the farm animals are referred to, but a rather ambitious project in his home country, where several poker pros are providing coaching in poker schools. The Simao's run the “Massari Poker School” and actively work on growing poker in Brazil.
“Of course it is the biggest to grow poker in our country, There are three steps: Bring new players, make the players start to play for real money and keep them playing for a longer term. When you start to coach, no matter if it's online or live, make sure to give some advice. I feel very well about it and I am sure that's important to grow poker as a game.”
In order to provide coaching lessons, Simao realizes the necessity to stay on top of his game all the time and study himself.
“To teach, you need to study, I always like to do that and no matter what, I try to do my best. I have thousands of students in Brazil and need to study hard to know exactly what I am teaching, it keeps me improving my game and I don't get lazy any time.”
On top of that, partypoker has been very active in supporting this pursuit of growth and co-sponsored several events in South America.
“I feel very comfortable to talk about partypoker. It is easy when you have to talk good things about someone who is doing it right. As a player, I am very proud and happy about what partypoker is doing. It is changing a lot in poker all over the world, live or online, it is growing a lot and creates a big competition. For me it is great to be a part of the team and they are very open to us ambassadors and listen to us, ask us what they should do to improve.”
After his final table finish in the €50k Super High Roller, Simao had other priorities than jumping right into the €100k. “I have my kids and my wife here and I just want to enjoy Barcelona, take a day off. I slept really bad this night, so that's it.”
After some time away from the tables, Simao entered the Main Event twice on Day 1a without success before bagging up 2.755 million chips for Day 2 and will be back in action tomorrow, April 13th, 2018.
The €10,300 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Grand Final Barcelona Main Event in the beautiful Casino Barcelona is set to continue at noon with Day 1c. With an amazing amount of €10,000,000 guaranteed, it is expected that the two flights today will be filled with many hopefuls trying to get their hands on a share of that prize pool!
Day 1a and 1b saw a total of 488 entries and 133 of those entries have made it through to Day 2 already. As the tournament allows players to put their best stack forward, some of those 133 players might join the field again today to try and build an even better stack.
The first of two starting flights today starts at noon local time. As with the new structure, players will start with 1,000,000 in chips for their €10,300 buy-in. For the players who take their seat in the first level, they will start with a small blind of 5,000, a big blind of 10,000, and a button ante of 5,000. Twelve levels of 45 minutes each are scheduled for today and players can reenter once during each flight. The registration and reentry period is open for six levels till approximately 17:00. Players who don’t make it through to Day 2, Friday, April 13th, can always choose to reenter through Day 1D which is scheduled to start at 17:00 local time.
Main Event Day 1 Level Structure
Level
Duration
Small Blind
Big Blind
Button Ante
1
45
5,000
10,000
5,000
2
45
5,000
10,000
10,000
3
45
6,000
12,000
12,000
4
45
7,000
14,000
14,000
5
45
8,000
16,000
16,000
6
45
10,000
20,000
20,000
7
45
10,000
25,000
25,000
8
45
15,000
30,000
30,000
9
45
15,000
35,000
35,000
10
45
20,000
40,000
40,000
11
45
25,000
50,000
50,000
12
45
30,000
60,000
60,000
Starting from today, the PokerNews live reporting team will be here, as usual, to provide you with all the Main Event action from the floor!
Tournament Day
Date
Further Information
Day 1a
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 @ 12:00
93 out of 338 players advanced to Day 2
Day 1b
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 @ 17:00
40 out of 150 players advanced to Day 2
Day 1c
Thursday, April 12, 2018 @ 12:00
45 min Levels, Single Re-Entry, Late Registration 6 Levels approx. 17:00
Day 1d
Thursday, April 12, 2018 @ 17:00
45 min Levels, Single Re-Entry, Late Registration 9 Levels approx. 00:30
Day 2
Friday, April 13, 2018 @ 13:00
60 min Levels, 8 Levels Total Scheduled
Day 3
Saturday, April 14, 2018 @ 12:00
60 min Levels, 8 Levels Total or Down to Final Table