Denys Shafikov Rules in Barcelona with Nine Players Remaining in Main Event
Day 5 of the 2015 PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Barcelona �5,300 Main Event started out with 36 players, but right off the bat the chips were flying. Action was fast and furious, and like the bad guys in the movies, players were knocked out left and right.
Mikalai Vaskaboinikau was the first player to get eliminated when his eights couldn't hold against Steve Warburton's 
, but he certainly wouldn't be the only one. Jude Ainsworth was found on the rail early on as well after he fell victim to Frederik Jensen. Jensen would eventually make the final table, and so would Rainer Kempe, who was responsible for Andre Akkari's elimination. Akkari found himself all in holding 
and trailing Kempe's 
.
It wasn't meant to be for one-time chip leader Daniel Dvoress. either. He lost his chips with to World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Pascal LeFrancois' pocket kings.
Jonathan Abdellatif ran into aces with , Shyam Srinivasan lost with sixes against tens, and Team PokerStars Pro Matthias De Meulder found his dream crushed when LeFrancois hit an ace with against his kings.
Bad beats and suck outs were everywhere to be seen, as well as hero calls and big celebrations after coin flips won. Mario Sanchez busted Philipp Kober with jacks to 
, Delgado lost to Kempe with to 
(eight on the flop), and Jonas Palsgaard lost with 
after being knocked down to just an ante the hand before.
Before anyone knew it, the tournament was down to two tables and the action didn't stop there. Despite players asking the floor to start hand-for-hand play because of a difference in pace, players got knocked out really fast and most of them fell on the feature table.
Meanwhile, Denys Shafikov was dominating the feature table. On the outer table, John Juanda and Jensen reigned.
Dominykas Karmazinas had been knocked down to just a few chips and made a remarkable comeback, only to bust in 14th when he ran jacks into queens. EPT Vienna champion Oleksii Khoroshenin first lost a big pot to Shafikov with , and he fell not much later against that very same Shafikov with fives to eights to bust in 13th place.
Lefrancois fell in 12th place when he shoved his last 25 big blinds over an open raise by Juanda. Juanda called with queens and beat out Lefrancois' eights.
Joao Brito was another victim of Shafikov's tear, as he lost with 
to 
. Then, Peter Eichhardt would be Shafikov's last victim of the day. Eichhardt, the start-of-day chip leader, got it in with to Shafikov's deuces and couldn't hit.
With Eichhardt's departure in 10th place, the final nine players were redrawn and took their seats at the unofficial final table. Play continued for another few levels, but no one wanted to go home. Kempe was down to just a couple of big blinds, but turned those into 31 "bigs" a couple hands later to back in the game; he ended play with 21 big blinds. Amir Touma also was very short, but got two shoves through to at least have somewhat of a fighting chance tomorrow.
The goal at the beginning of the day was to play down to six, or at least to the official final table of eight. At last-minute's notice, the tournament organizers decided to halt play with nine left at 12:40 a.m. With that, the following nine will return to Casino Barcelona tomorrow at 12 p.m. local time.
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denys Shafikov | Ukraine | 17,515,000 | 109 |
| 2 | Amir Touma | Lebanon | 1,180,000 | 7 |
| 3 | Rainer Kempe | Germany | 3,775,000 | 21 |
| 4 | Steven Warburton | United Kingdom | 7,180,000 | 45 |
| 5 | Victor Bogdanov | Russia | 1,415,000 | 9 |
| 6 | John Juanda | Indonesia | 4,040,000 | 25 |
| 7 | Mario Sanchez | Spain | 2,885,000 | 18 |
| 8 | Frederik Jensen | Denmark | 5,580,000 | 35 |
| 9 | Andreas Samuelsson | Sweden | 7,005,000 | 39 |
Live coverage will begin at 1 p.m. with cards-up coverage right here on PokerNews. So stay tuned, and check back here soon to get your last poker fix from Barcelona.