While you’re tuning in to the Main Event live stream and furiously hitting refresh on updates from the €10K High Roller, you might have noticed some other tables scattered around the room featuring some of the best players in the game.
They’re playing in (what’s commonly referred to by the high roller themselves as) the “Trip Saver”; one final €25K tournament which kicked off yesterday (Aug 31) and — with a speedy format and relatively small field — will come to an end today.
Why is it called the ‘Trip Saver’, you ask? Well, because it could potentially get one of the remaining high roller regulars in profit after what has been an action-packed (and no doubt expensive) grind here at Casino Barcelona.
This one got started at 7pm last night, giving everyone who had already busted the €10K High Roller one last shot at a big score (hence its nickname).
With unlimited re-entries registration remained open until the start of Day 2 today, and when those doors were closed we’d seen 60 total entries (including 19 re-entries). That created a prize pool of €1,440,600, which was to be split between the final eight players.
Trip Saver payouts
The problem is, when we started writing this article, there were still 11 left.
Those still in the hunt were Sam Greenwood, Charlie Carrel, Alex Foxen, David Peters, Daniel Dvoress, Danny Tang, Michael Soyza, Elio Fox, Orpen Kisacikoglu, Cary Katz, and Mikalai Vaskaboinikau.
The least we could do is follow along with the action until the bubble bursts, right?
THE (QUIETEST) BUBBLE
This tournament didn’t save anything for Daniel Dvoress.
A few orbits prior we saw Alex Foxen open the cutoff, Dvoress jam the button, and Michael Soyza isolated from the small blind. After Foxen folded, Dvoress showed pocket nines up against ace-queen, and flopped a nine to double.
Daniel Dvoress
An almost identical set up took place not long after. Foxen opened the cutoff again, Dvoress jammed on the button for 17 big blinds, and this time it was Cary Katz in the big blind who isolated for his entire 29-big-blind stack. Foxen folded once again, but there’d be no flip this time. Dvoress’ pocket threes were in bad shape against Katz’s pocket nines, and when another nine hit the felt, Dvoress said his goodbyes.
Kisacikoglu would be the next to fall, setting up both the final table of nine and the stone cold bubble.
Or did it?
Soyza bubbled…we think
No, as it turns out. Lost in the commotion, we then discovered Michael Soyza had also busted over on the other table, meaning all of the remaining eight sailed straight into the money, locking up €57,620. Here’s a look at how they stacked up:
1.Alex Foxen – 160,000
2.Danny Tang – 360,000
3.Charlie Carrel – 430,000
4.Sam Greenwood – 530,000
5.David Peters – 180,000
6.Elio Fox – 365,000
7.Mikalai Vaskaboinikau – 220,000
8.Cary Katz – 570,000
David Peters was then the first to leave with a payday. He shoved over a Cary Katz open with pocket nines from the small blind, only for Katz to snap call with pocket aces, which held.
Peters kicked out by Katz
That leaves us with seven.
And that’s also where we’re going to leave things, for now.
Head over to our EPT Barcelona results page later this evening to find out who will potentially save their trip with a €432K win.