Raul Mestre of Spain leads the final 24 players at the EPT Barcelona €5,300 main event at Casino Barcelona. The European Poker Tour's first stop of their 2011/2012 season set new records including the biggest poker tournament every held in Spain with 811 players and the largest prizepool of €4,055,000.


Eugene Katchalov remains the biggest name in the field and sits comfortably in fifth place with 1,453,000 chips.

The money bubble burst at 120 players remaining and with 24 players in the field, each is looking carefully at the trophy and €850,000 that goes with it.

When play resumes Wednesday, the average stack will be 973,000 with the blinds at 10,000-20,000 with a 3,000 ante.

They will play down to the final table where they will be chasing the following hefty payouts:

1. €850,000
2. €532,000
3. €315,000
4. €244,000
5. €185,000
6. €145,000
7. €105,000
8. €73,000

Place Player Country Chip Count
1. Tomev Gomila 2543000
2. Raul Mestre 2363000
3. Marcos Fernandez 1750000
4. Saar Wilf 1700000
5. Eugene Katchalov 1452000
6. Jose Miguel Esteban Nieto 1420000
7. Massimilano Martinez 1400000
8. Matthias De Meulder 1376000
9. Javier Contreras 1150000
10. Evgeny Zaytsev 1004000
11. Mikel Allende Diaz 958000
12. Rumen Nanev 846000
13. Marton Czuczor 560000
14. Xavier Carruggi 542000
15. Anthony Picault 500000
16. Dragan Kostic 495000
17. Juan Manuel Perez Cornejo 415000
18. Tome Moreira 340000
19. Sigurd Andreas Eskeland 316000
20. Miguel Magan Tier 288000
21. Benjamin Juhasz 180000
22. Andras Kovacs 180000
23. Martin Schleich 77000
24. Vadzim Kursevich 49000

Notables to bust in the money included former tennis pro Boris Becker (97th), WSOP final tablist Filippo Candio (94th), Vanessa Selbst (84th), Victor Ramdin (74th), Andre Akkari (61st), Alex Kravchenko (39th), and the last woman standing Leo Margets (36th).