Homegrown Players Show Out on Day 1 in Barcelona High Roller
The €10,300 High Roller in Barcelona has historically had one of the strongest turnouts at PokerStars events in Barcelona, and the one here for the PokerStars Championship Barcelona was no different as 542 entries have been logged so far after the first day of action.
Spanish players turned in a strong effort on their home turf, finishing with three of the top five chip counts by day's end.
Leading the way is David Lopez Llacer, who turned his 50,000 starting stack into 362,100 after 10 one-hour levels. Lopez Llacer, who finished runner-up at WSOPE Main Event in 2015 to Kevin MacPhee, is best known for his outstanding online exploits as "davaman." He was reportedly the fastest Spanish player to reach Supernova Elite status, thanks to grinding hyperturbo sit-n-gos.
Sitting in third place is perhaps Spain's current crown jewel, Adrian Mateos. The budding tournament superstar has racked up millions in winnings before even hitting the age of 25. He finished the day with 299,800, while fellow Spaniard Raul Martinez ended with 281,500, good for fifth place.
Others in the top five were Austria's Markus Durnegger (315,000) and Canada's Christopher Kruk, who just the previous night
won the €5,000 turbo here for a cool €80,000.
And while PokerStars Team Pro Andre Akkari is representing the company with aplomb in the Main Event, where he bagged the chip lead heading into the final two tables, his teammates Jake Cody is doing his best to keep up. The British pro bagged 204,500. Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier also continued his recent hot streak by bagging 125,000.
Overall 251 players made it through, and they'll be joined on Saturday's Day 2 by any player who wishes to enter or use the one allotted reentry to return to the tournament. Players can register up until the 12:30 p.m. start of play, and there will surely be more who wish to take a crack at this burgeoning prize pool.
Come back to PokerNews then for more coverage of the huge €10,300 High Roller here in Barcelona.