Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 3 -- The Big Freezeout

Crazy huge field for the third and final Day 1 flight of the Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event, which my colleague Jack and I helped report once again along with help from our photographer friend René.

That to the left is a pic of the registration line early in the day. Ended up with 1,755 players on this day alone, which brought the overall number of runners up to 3,447 -- a little over 150 more than what they drew for this same €1,100 buy-in event from a year ago. That makes the prize pool €3,343,590 with €423,600 up top for the winner.

It’s kind of a unique thing these days to have a relatively big field event for a relatively low buy-in and there not being any reentries involved.

Looking at this past summer’s World Series of Poker, there were seven events out of the 69 that drew larger fields in terms of entries, although four of these were reentry events. Only the Main Event, the Seniors, and the Monster Stack were freezeouts drawing more “uniques” to play -- of those, only the Monster Stack really compares (being a $1,500 event).

As a fan and reporter, I very much prefer freezeouts. As a player I do as well, although that could be in part because when I first started playing tournaments, “rebuy” events (as they were called, and for which there is a distinction) were then the exception, not the norm.

From the reporting side of things, it’s tedious enough to do multiple Day 1s, but to have the same players entering over and over and report on their bustouts time after time is more than a little absurd. I’m remembering one event from a couple of years back I covered in which a player entered seven times, and I reported five of his bustout hands.

Talk about chronicling trivia.

Anyhow, things get a bit more interesting tomorrow with the bubble bursting and everything becoming a bit more meaningful going forward. Thankfully I’m catching a slight break with these 10 a.m. starts, as Jack is covering the start and I’m doing a little extra at the end, giving me a bit more time in the mornings for other things. I won’t go on about it, but I’m no fan of the pre-noon starting times, no way no how.

Back at it tomorrow. Check that PokerStars blogfor more on the ESPT, as well as for reports from the first €10K High Roller which should be playing down to a winner.

Photo: courtesy René Velli/PokerStars blog.