Rodriguez heads EPT Barcelona – 24 left

Rodriguez heads EPT Barcelona – 24 left

Friday, 24 August 2012

Day 4 at EPT Barcelona started with 61 players dreaming of a seven-figure score and by the close just 24 of them were left with the unlikely figure of Samuel Rodriguez leading the way.

The 25-year-old, who is playing in his first major live tournament, closed the day with a massive stack of 5,330,000, more than 2m ahead of closest rival Jonathan Karamalikis who will return tomorrow with 3,085,000.


Rodriguez, who qualified for the tournament for just €100, told the PokerStars blog, “I had a very good day. I feel great. It's my first European Poker Tour tournament so being the chip leader with two days remaining is very nice. Now I want to make the final nine. I'm very, very surprised, but I played some good poker. My plan for the next two days is to...well, let's see what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow will be another day. I’m going to take it calmly."


Even with his big stack, Rodriguez will have his work cut out making it through to the final table with the likes of John Juanda (1,644,000), EPT Grand Final runner up Lucille Cailly (1,431,000), Ilari Sahamies (1,046,000) and Olympic gold medallist Fatima Moreira de Melo (805,000) all looming.


A first ever double EPT winner is also a possibility with Roberto Romanello among the final two dozen. The Welshman will need some luck though, returning as he does as one of the short stacks with 497,000 chips.


The penultimate day action gets under way at noon local time.



Tags: EPT Barcelona, Ilari Sahamies, John Juanda, Roberto Romanello, Samuel Rodriguez