EPT Barcelona 2010 Final Table: 6 Players Remain
6 players out of 758 total entrants were remaining at the EPT Barcelona 2010 final table as of Saturday afternoon here in Spain. The first place prize in this PokerStars.com sponsored event is €825,000.
Here was your final table.
Seat 1 - Jesus Lizano - 3,800,000
Seat 2 - Kent Lundmark - 3,025,000
Seat 3 - Konstantin Puchkov - 4,160,000
Seat 4 - Shander De Vries - 3,120,000
Seat 5 - Giuseppe Pantaleo - 5,655,000
Seat 6 - Francesco Notaro - 745,000
Seat 7 - Thor Stang - 1,290,000
Seat 8 - Georgios Skotadis - 1,105,000
Notaro and Skotadis were both out as of Saturday afternoon. Lizano and Lundmark continued to lead the pack with number of chips.
Lizano (Spain) is a full-time poker pro from Zaragoza. He started playing poker when he was 18 and now divides his time between playing online and live, usually cash games. He only came to EPT Barcelona to play the cash games, but entered the live satellite on a whim, and now is on course for his best live result.
Lundmark (Sweden) is an EPT regular and also a regular player in the Krukan cardroom. One of his first EPTs was the PCA last season where he was the longest-lasting Swede - finishing in 29th place. This is his third EPT cash and his biggest result to date, although he has reached final tables in Sweden and Estonia.
As amateurs go Konstantion Puchkov (Russia) has a pretty impressive record. The Russian has notched up $771,606 in tournament winnings including a second place finish in the €5,000 six-max side event at the 2009 EPT Grand Final, and a bracelet-winning performance in this year's $1,500 World Series H.O.R.S..E. event. By brilliant coincidence Puchkov lists his profession as a horse breeder and trainer.
Puchkov has been playing poker since 1999 and while he prefers tournaments, he isn't afraid of a bit of $10/$25 action in the side games.
Puchkov has been an active player throughout the tournament and enters the final table second in chips. 'Today was the hardest day because I was all-in with aces and was drawing to seven outs,' recalled Puchkov on Day 4, who had Ah Ad against Luis Rufas' Js 8c on a Jc-flop. Rufas caught an eight on the turn before Puchkov rivered an ace. 'It was the first time that I was really at risk all tournament.
Shander De Vries, 26, Groningen, (Netherlands) is a PokerStars player.
De Vries began playing poker four years ago and has since built his bankroll playing the $4.40 180-player Sit & Gos on PokerStars. He later began to specialise in multi-table tournaments, achieving good results.
Pantaleo (Germany) has been playing poker for three years, usually playing tournaments. In July he finished fourth in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-up then won it a month later.
EPT Barcelona is his third EPT cash after last season's events in Berlin (142nd) and San Remo (37th). Pantaleo, an international trade specialist, admits to playing cash, "but actually I'm bad in cash games!"
While he was born and raised in Germany but both of Pantaleo's parents, and his siblings, were born in Italy, and as he says "my heart is Italian."
Stang, a student, has been playing poker for four years, mainly in cash games. He said "I don't really like tournaments that much. In cash games, you can reload if you get short but here I've been short-stacked all day! I came into Day 4 third in chips but then ran queens into Kings and since then I've never had more than 25 big blinds all day. It's very frustrating but on the other hand, tournaments are exciting."
- Ace King, Gambling911.com
