Stephen Chidwick Atop EPT Barcelona €50K Super High Roller Event

Another busy day at the EPT12 Barcelona Poker Festival Saturday as a staggering 81 unique players showed up for the €50k Super High Roller.

Twelve players opted to re-enter and brought today's number to 93 entries. It's another record-breaking event for EPT Barcelona - there were 77 entries last season.

Stephen Chidwick topped the star-studded field to seize the Day 1 lead, bagging 1,062,000 chips. The Brit has been a regular fixture on the EPT circuit for years but his biggest achievements came in Prague two seasons ago. He finished third in both the EPT and Eureka Main Events for combined winnings of €470,500 and followed it up with another third place the next year, securing €355k in the €50k Super High Roller. In addition to his $4m in live tournament winnings, Chidwick is also a well-known online shark playing under the familiar name 'stevie444'.

Christoph Vogelsang finished Day 1 just behind Chidwick with 1,002,500 chips. The German had an insane start to his online career, playing $25/50 cash game within four weeks of making his deposit, of just $10. He eventually made it all the way up to the nosebleeds cash games. Vogelsang is no newbie in Super High Roller line-ups either; his resumé includes third place in the 2013 WSOP $1m Big One for One Drop event worth $4,480,001.

Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier has 84,000 while Team Online's Isaac Haxton bagged 211,500 after firing off a second €50k bullet. At least 66 players will come back tomorrow. All players have the opportunity to enter or re-enter until start of Day 2 at 12.15pm, so there might be some late arrivals.

Top five chip counts after Day 1: 
1st - Stephen Chidwick, UK, 1,062,000 
2nd - Christoph Vogelsang, Germany, 1,002,500 
3rd - Mike McDonald, Canada, 855,000 
4th - Jean-Noel Thorel, France, 775,000 
5th - Carlos Mironiuk, Argentina, 745,000