Fabrizio Gonzalez opened for 500 in the cutoff and got three-bet to 1,500 by his opponent in the next seat. Elliot Smith peeked at his holding in the small blind and then put in 4,500. Gonzalez jammed for about 6,300, chasing the squeezed player away, and Smith put him at risk.
Smith:
Gonzalez:
Gonzalez moved to exit, but the flop gave him new life with a set. A turn made things a bit hairy as he now had to dodge a bunch of cards, but the river was safe.
With three players active, the board was reading and Martin Riseng had checked. Aymon Hata bet 4,500 and the third player in the hand, Elie El Feghali, got the clock called on him before calling the 4,500.
Riseng took around twenty seconds before check-raising to 11,000. Hata folded and El Feghali quickly called. On the river, Riseng shoved 16,950 and El Feghali called after thinking another minute.
Riseng showed for the second nuts and El Feghali snap-mucked his hand face-down. Per PokerStars Championship rules (or basically, in any poker tournament), El Feghali was forced to show and was revealed.
Orpen Kisacikoglu opened for 525 in middle position and called a three-bet to 1,700 from an opponent in the big blind. Kisacikoglu peeled for bets of 1,800 on the flop and 5,100 on the turn as rolled off the deck. The big blind fired a third shell worth 9,200, and Kisacikoglu immediately cut out calling chips. However, he thought better of it and mucked after a minute or so.
Ali Reza Fatehi raised to 500 in middle position, Fabrice Maltez raised to 1,500 on the button, and Fatehi called. On a board that ran down , Maltez wasted no time and instantly fired each street.
Fatehi check-called 1,600 from the Frenchman on the flop and 2,400 on the turn. On the river, the Iranian check-folded to a 5,000 bet. Fatehi is seated to the left of Charlie Carrel, who also opted to play Day 1a with the €25k High Roller being tomorrow.
With the pot up to 14,000, Yang Wang moved all in on a board to put his opponent to the test for her remaining 8,000 in chips. After contemplating for a while, she opted to call it off.
Wang quickly showed , enough to beat his opponent's and send her to the rail.
After presumably losing a big pot for most of his chips, Steve O'Dwyer was left with 1,500 when we took note of him just before break. The rest of his chips went in after he defended his big blind from an open by Uri Reichenstein and saw a flop. O'Dwyer put in his last 1,000, a pot-sized jam, and Reichenstein hemmed and hawed a bet before putting in the calling chip.
O'Dwyer:
Reichenstein:
O'Dwyer was ahead and favored to double, but the river after the turn meant he was finished after a short stay in the Main Event.
While things are just getting going here in the €5,300 Main Event at PokerStars Championship Barcelona, they're winding down in the €1,100 National Championship, which drew the largest field in PokerStars Live history with 4,557 entries. Over 3,600 of those were unique entries as well, and the prize pool swelled to the point where first place is set to be awarded €575,000.