EPT Barcelona Results Are In; Mercier and ElkY Separated By Three Points

A lot of exciting poker took place at the EPT Barcelona last week, with new GPI results rolling in from seven separate events. One of the events was the €10,000 NLHE High Roller where three GPI Top Twenty players cashed. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (GPI#2 0) was one of those at the High Roller final table and had more to play for than merely the prize money. Despite having a score from the L.A. Poker Classic aging into Period 2 this week, if Grospellier finished in any of the top six places he would net enough overall points to overtake Jason Mercier for GPI#1. With seven players left at the table ElkY went all in against Alex Bilokur and was knocked out, giving him an overall score gain of 47 points and falling a mere 3.18 points short of the elusive GPI#1 he’s been chasing for the past nine weeks.

If and when he finally does recapture the World’s Best title, holding on to it will likely take some work. Dan Smith’s amazing year continued in Barcelona where he final tabled yet another event, the €10,000 NLHE Heads-Up. Smith currently has only two Period 2 scores but his impressive amount of excess scores, six total including the Heads-Up score, start aging out of Period 1 towards the end of October and will begin to fill in his open slots in Period 2 which will improve his overall score.

After knocking Grospellier out of the High Roller, Alex Bilokur went on to finish runner-up and gets a nice boost in rank, up 45 spots to GPI#52. Tobias Reinkenmeier (GPI#63 +50) finished 3^rd and has one of the largest overall score gains this week. Reinkemeier’s Main Event cash from last year’s EPT Barcelona ages into Period 3 costing him 54 points but he previously only had two Period 1 scores so his score for this event still nets him an overall 276 point gain. Jean-Noel Thorel (GPI#164 +108) uses the 265 points he earned for his 6^th place finish to move up the most in rank this week of any GPI 300 player. Rounding out the final table was Kristijonas Andrulis who earned 227 points and moves up 57 spots to GPI#134.

Jonathan Duhamel (GPI#11 +2) and Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger (GPI#9 +1) just missed the €10,000 NLHE High Roller final table after finishing in 10^th and 11^th place. Lichtenberger also cashed in the €2,000 NLHE event but both scores are excluded from his overall score due to the 4 cash cap in Period 1. Conversely, Duhamel is able to count his score because his runner-up finish in the 2012 L.A. Poker Classic $5,100 NLHE event ages into Period 2 leaving room for his NLHE High Roller in Period 1. However, the 217 points he earned are offset by the L.A. Poker Classic score replacing his final table score from the Main Event at the WPT Marrakech and his overall score ultimately drops 12 points.

Bryn Kenney and Roberto Romanello both return to the Top Twenty on the heels of success in Barcelona. Kenney won the €5,000 NLHE – 6-Max Turbo and moves up 5 spots to GPI#20. Steve O’Dwyer joined him at the final table but loses a few points and stays at GPI#5. O’Dwyer earned 223 points from this event but his EPT Copenhagen Main Event final table score from February ages into Period 2 replacing another score leaving him with a net drop in his overall score of 12 points. Romanello cashed in the €5,000 NLHE Main Event and shoots up 9 spots to GPI#12.

Three players who did not cash this week and pay for it are Matt Marafioti, Eugene Katchalov, and Noah Schwartz. Marafioti takes a tumble but manages to stay in the Top Twenty at GPI#16. Katchalov (GPI#22 -13), on the other hand, is not only out of Top Ten but out of the Top Twenty and Schwartz drops all the way to GPI#30. This is very unfamiliar territory for Katchalov given that he has only been out of the Top Ten once since the debut of the Index, and then only fell to GPI#12. Falling out of the Top Twenty puts GPI#1 out of reach for him in the short term. He nearly became the fourth player to reach the top of the rankings last October when he spent three weeks at GPI#2 but could never manage to catch Erik Seidel who at the time had a strangle hold on the top spot. His fall this week is mostly due to his 3^rd place finish in last year’s EPT Barcelona Main Event aging into Period 3 and replacing his win in the 2011 WSOP Seven Card Stud event. That leaves him with only 3 of the possible 4 scores in Period 2. However, this may allow him to gain back some ground in the coming weeks as more of his scores age into lower Periods.

Update to be continued this week…