We have reached the final eight in the UKIPT5 Marbella Main Event and as always with these events we've a varied line-up which should make for a great final table. Perhaps the 833 players who have already fallen might not feel that way but for any neutrals, following the fortunes of the final eight should make for compelling reading.
There's Jose Angel Latorre, the chip leader, who is a Supernova Elite, accrued over 3,000,000 VPPs last year on PokerStars. You 'only' need 1,000,000 to make Supernova Elite, however it takes most players who shoot for that target an entire year of locking themselves in their room to get over the line. Lattorre did that three times over, it's a bit like sprinting past a very fast runner whilst running backwards and giving them a cheeky little wave. The Spaniard, who now calls London home, hit that milestone mostly by playing high stakes Sit andGo's, although given he also has a TCOOP title to his name he's not exactly a tournament novice.
Then there's Sam Grafton, the gregarious Brit who is making a habit of running deep in this tournament. Last year he had a big stack but bubbled the final table in ninth place. This year he found himself in a very different spot as one of the shorter stacks from two tables out. He battled through though and after numerous deep runs (25th, 9th, 43rd, 33rd, 15th, 14th) over the five Seasons of the UKIPT Grafton takes his place among the final eight for the first time. Few, if any, will begrudge him that achievement .
Whilst they might be the headline acts the remaining six players representing Spain (four), Holland and Austria all have a chance to make a name for themselves and claim a first prize of €150,800 whilst doing so.
They've already locked up €14,100 for their efforts this week and the final table was set just after 9pm tonight when Aleksandar Abutovic's [Kc][Qc] lost out to David Vedral's [As][4s]. This is how the final eight will line-up tomorrow when play restarts tomorrow.
Read final table profiles here
| Seat | Name | Country | Status | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dario Carrion | Spain | PokerStars Qualifier | 3,305,000 |
| 2 | Jose Angel Latorre | Spain | PokerStars Player | 6,950,000 |
| 3 | Rodrigo Rosales | Spain | PokerStars Qualifier | 3,175,000 |
| 4 | Sam Grafton | UK | PokerStars Qualifier | 1,035,000 |
| 5 | Isidoro Barreña | Spain | 1,570,000 | |
| 6 | David Vedral | Austria | PokerStars Qualifier | 1,920,000 |
| 7 | Jeffrey Brouwer | Netherlands | 850,000 | |
| 8 | Juan Bautista | Spain | 1,750,000 |
They will be in Level 26, with blinds of 25,000-50,000 and a 5,000 ante (for another eight minutes), that makes the average stack 51 big blinds right now and 42.5 when the blinds next go up. There is still plenty of play left in this one.
The best way to recap how we went from 61 players to the final table of eight is to check out today's updates here and here but the short version of the day goes like this.
The start was fast, very fast. The field was cut down to the final 24 inside the first four levels and the likes of Mateusz Moolhuizen (27th), Daniel Price (29th), Tomeu Gomila (33rd) and Jesus Javier Bustos (53rd) had departed and Latorre had risen imperiously to the top of the chip counts. He would never let that lead slip.
It took another four levels to go from 24 to eight and it was during this period that Latorre went into overdrive hoovering up chips at every opportunity. He had over 20% of the chips in play with 16 players left and when he won a big pot against Rodrido Rosales and then eliminated Andreas Schillinger in 12th place he had damn near 33% of the chips in play. Had he not doubled up Rosales at the unofficial final table of nine we might have been looking at a chip leader with 50% of the chips with eight left.
As it is the other players are still in with a chance of overhauling him, follow the coverage right here from 12.15pm CET to see if anyone can stop Lattore going wire to wire. Until tomorrow good night.
Photos copyright of Mickey May and Rene Velli