Nandor Solyom moved all-in from middle position for 64,500 and was up and out of his chair when the next player to act, Simon Mattsson, did likewise for around treble his stack. No others fancied getting involved, and Mattsson turned over . Solyom was ahead with , but he needed to survive five community cards.
The flop of kept Solyom ahead, and the turn and river made sure he could sit back down, piling up 138,000 chips. Mattson forces a rueful smile and still has around twenty big blinds with 109,000 to his name.
Dara "Doke" O'Kearney suffered a table with plenty of big names for Day 2 and nursed through a short stack. The Irishman also made the pay jump, but just now took to Twitter to share the bad news.
France's Damien Luis started the day with just 63,000 in chips. After just one hour of play, Luis already ran his stack up to 380,000. After cracking aces earlier, Luis now scored a full double-up against Tomasz Gluszko to send him to the higher regions of the leaderboard.
On a flop, Gluszko bet 13,500 and Luis check-raised to 34,000. Gluszko called and also called a 61,500 bet from Luis on the turn. On the river, Luis moved in for 70,000. Gluszko was visibly unhappy with the situation, but called it off anyway with . Luis held for a set of jacks to net the double.
Among the most recent players that joined the rail were Ognyan Dimov and Stefan Huber, while others are thriving and increased their stacks throughout the first hour of Day 3.
The two biggest stacks right now are Uri Reichenstein and Anthony Edouard Chimkovitch. The former explained that he won a big pot early on after raising the button to 10,000 and then facing a three-bet to 32,000 by Diogo Cardoso. Reichenstein then four-bet to 90,000 and Cardoso got it in with . Reichenstein called with and held up.
There have been big changes at the top and bottom of the chip-counts, as following the recent pay-jump, players have been flying out of the Main Event. Philippe Souki was one of the players who departed, and he told us all about it on the rail.
"I defended my big blind twice and was rivered by a player with Ace-Three and then bricked turn and river with an open-straight draw. I was down to twenty big blinds and got them in with pocket jacks. A player who hadn't played a hand so far moved all-in and his eyes lit up. I was thinking'Please have Ace-King in this spot', but he had pocket aces. Its never nice busting the Main, but I'll play the €1k side event later. Barcelona is a great city to enjoy outside the poker room."
Souki may have left the cardroom, but three players who have real designs on the €1.122m top prize are Anthony Edouard Chimkovitch (780,000), Yannick Autaa (635,000) and Sam Mao (pictured, 620,000). Mao did rocket into an early lead, but Chimkovitch is on a heater right now and leads the way with the first level of the day's play about to end.
In a battle of the blinds, a raising war saw Van Hiep Tran all in and at risk out of the small blind and Nicholas Palma looked him up with the dominating hand.
Tran:
Palma:
The board ran out and Tran let out a "yesss" and a fist pump, and doubled up for 135,000. "He already got me in a big hand before," Palma said after his stack had melted all the way to just a mere big blinds.
Dorian Rios Pavon raised from middle position and Didier Bauduin Mazairac called in the small blind. On the flop, Mazairac check-called a continuation bet worth 15,000 and both players then checked the turn and river. Mazairac showed and that was good enough to win the pot.