Dzmitry Urbanovich just came strolling in, as if he didn't have a care in the world. Urbanovich chatted with his good friend Jose Carlos Garcia, who's playing the Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event, before walking to his own final table.
Urbanovich was just in time for the fourth hand of the day and now finally the final table is complete with all nine players in attendance.
The first hand of the day, with Urbanovich still missing, saw Paul Newey raise it up from early position and he took down the blinds and antes.
Action folded to JC Alvarado on the button the second hand of play, and he raised it up to 125,000. Byron Kaverman in the small blind pushed all in and the big blind folded. Alvarado made the call.
Kaverman: 
Alvarado: 
The flop came about as good as they could come for Kaverman: 
. The 
on the turn and 
on the river didn't change a thing, and Kaverman doubled.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
2,000,000
-485,000
|
-485,000 |
|
1,020,000
525,000
|
525,000 |
Level: 19
Blinds: 30,000/60,000
Ante: 10,000
Play at the final table of the �50,000 Super High Roller has been delayed for at least a few minutes, since Polish pro Dzmitry Urbanovich has failed to show up on time.
The other eight finalist are present, and play could be underway as soon as the youngster shows up.
After two days of high stakes action in Barcelona, the Super High Roller crowd of 99 is down to just 9 players. Already well into the money, the finalists will battle it out for the �1,224,000 first place prize at 12:30 pm (in about 75 minutes).
Yesterday's day was an exciting one, with most of the drama coming from the bubble. Viacheslav Buldygin was the unfortunate player to go out in 16th place, guaranteeing the remaining 15 layers a pay day of at least �80,800. For some, that didn't get them even for the tournament just yet, as more than one player had invested 2 bullets to get where they were.
Where most tournaments see lots of players fall after the bubble bursts, this Super High Roller continued for quite a while without any new casualties. Eventually, players did go broke and Igor Kurganov (15th, �80,800), Stephen Chidwick (14th, �80,800), Max Altergott (13th, �87,900), Mike McDonald (12th, �87,900), Fedor Holz (11thth, �99,800), and Ben Tollerene (10th, �99,800) eventually fell before play was halted after the ten levels scheduled were played out.
The remaining nine players will battle it out this afternoon for that first place prize of �1,224,000. Australian Michael Egan, who's live cashes all have come from tournaments in Australia, is on the verge of beating his best live result to date. Unless he finishes ninth, he'll beat his old record of $144,000 - the sum of money he received for winning the Victorian Poker Championship in Melbourne back in 2010. JC Alvarado, who finished runner up in the inaugural EPT Barcelona Super High Roller back in 2012, is back and placed in the middle of the pack this time. Here's the starting line up for todays final table:
| Seat | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dzmitry Urbanovich | 4,325,000 | 72 |
| 2 | Steve O'Dwyer | 2,450,000 | 41 |
| 3 | Christoph Vogelsang | 4,765,000 | 79 |
| 4 | JC Alvarado | 2,485,000 | 41 |
| 5 | Byron Kaverman | 495,000 | 8 |
| 6 | Sylvain Loosli | 1,200,000 | 20 |
| 7 | Ivan Luca | 2,580,000 | 43 |
| 8 | Paul Newey | 1,035,000 | 17 |
| 9 | Michael Egan | 5,410,000 | 90 |
The 2011 edition of the PokerStars EPT Barcelona festival had a �10,000 single reentry tournament, won by Philipp Gruissem. The 2012 edition featured a �50,000 Super High Roller, a first for the tour's stop, and the tournament has been a fixture on the schedule ever since.
| Season | Year | Entries | Super High Roller Champion | Super High Roller Runner-Up | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 9 | 64 | Dan Smith | �962.925 | JC Alvarado | �788,674 |
| 2013 | 10 | 51 | Vitaly Lunkin | �771,300 | Erik Seidel | �557,100 |
| 2014 | 11 | 77 | Olivier Busquet | �896,434 | Daniel Colman | �843,066 |
| 2015 | 12 | 99 | --TBD-- | �1,224,000 | --TBD-- | �841,500 |
Before play starts, and you keep your fingers on the refresh button to check all the updates right here on PokerNews.com, check out the interview we did with EPT debutant Ben Tollerene:
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
5,410,000 | |
|
4,765,000 | |
|
4,325,000 | |
|
||
|
2,580,000 | |
|
|
2,485,000 | |
|
2,450,000 | |
|
|
||
|
1,200,000 | |
|
||
|
1,035,000 | |
|
|
495,000 | |
After covering Day 2 of the 2015 European Poker Tour Barcelona �50,000 Super High Roller, Remko Rinkema and Donnie Peters discuss languages, autocorrections, and the great deals at T.J. Maxx.
Yes, really.
They also find some time to preview Monday's final table.
And don't forgot, fans can call in and leave a voicemail for the crew at 774-77-PNPOD.
You can subscribe to the entire iBus Media Network on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here. The PokerNews family of podcasts is now available on Stitcher.
Poland's Dzmitry Urbanovich was all the rave in the first half of the year, and he's picked up right where he left off in the second half of the year.
Before the summer, Urbanovich cashed in and final tabled six events at the recent European Poker Tour Malta festival. Of those, he won four, including the �25,500 High Roller for �572,300.
He then traveled to the EPT Grand Final in Monaco and earned three more highly-impressive results. First, he took second to Erik Seidel in the �100,000 Super High Roller for �1.446 million after completely skipping Day 1 of the event. Then, he finish 40th out of 564 players in the �10,600 Main Event for �23,125. Finally, the young star took third in the �10,200 Six-Max No-Limit Hold'em Turbo for �101,600.
Now, he boasts nearly $2.775 million in live tournament earnings entering this event and sits first on Poland's all-time money list �� all without even being 21 years old.
It feels as though Steve O'Dwyer makes a super high roller final table every other week, and this event is no different with O'Dwyer entering Day 3 with 2.45 million in his stack.
A former resident of the United States, O'Dwyer now resides overseas in Europe where he can actively play online poker without restriction.
In January of this year, O'Dwyer scored first place in the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller. He earned $1.872 million for that victory and propelled his live tournament winnings over $9 million at the time. That was the largest live event score for O'Dwyer, but he's got plenty of other big ones to go along with it.
In November 2014, O'Dwyer took first in the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour Asia Championship of Poker for over $1.8 million. He's also a champion of the European Poker Tour Grand Final Main Event in 2013. There he earned a top prize of �1.224 million.
Since his huge win that kicked off the year, O'Dwyer has won another $978,136 from live tournaments. That doesn't include what he's going to win here, either. He's earned three more six-figure cashes in between his PCA win and this event, including a �528,700 third-place result in the 2015 EPT Grand Final �25,500 High Roller.
All told, O'Dwyer now boasts over $10 million in live tournament earnings.
Second in chips entering Day 3 is Germany's Christoph Vogelsang with 4.765 million. An impressive player with over $5.7 million in live tournament earnings, Vogelsang is as calm and collected of poker player as they come.
Almost all of Vogelsang's live tournament results have come in big buy-in competitions. Not counting this event, Vogelsang has six live cashes to his credit, and four of those have been in events garnering a price tag of more than �25,000. His best result to date was a third-place finish in the 2014 World Series of Poker $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop �� the same event that another member of this final nine, Paul Newey, took seventh in. There Vogelsang earned $4.48 million for his finish.
Also of note, Vogelsang's first-ever live cash was in the 2013 European Poker Tour London ��50,000 Super High Roller for ��383,200. He also made the final table of the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller and took fifth for $512,160.
JC Alvarado is no stranger to this event, placing second to Dan Smith in the first-ever �50,000 Super High Roller held at the European Poker Tour Barcelona back in 2012.
Alvarado got his feet wet in poker after he graduated from high school. Through home games with friends, ones that actually began outside of the home at a local IHOP, Alvarado accumulated a small bankroll and built confidence in his game. From there, he took to the virtual felt.
As many who make the dive into online poker, Alvarado quickly lost his first deposit and was forced to reload. Soon, he learned the game and progressed through the ranks, but then disaster struck and Alvarado found himself broke. Nevertheless, the Mexican's drive and determination led him to get back into the game. With the support from his Mom, soon enough, his hard work paid off and Alvarado's bankroll was flush.
After building his bankroll and confidence back up online, Alvarado took to the live felt in 2006. Since then, he's racked up more than $2.3 million in live earnings entering this event and made his way to the top of the Mexican all-time poker money list.
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