The second Day 1 flight in the Spanish capital was packed to the rafters as 350 players hit the felt, close to three times as many as Day 1A.
477 in total kicked in their €5,300 buy-ins to put €2,313,450 in the pot. That sum will be chopped up among the top 72 finishers with €545,000 going to first.
The winner will also receive a Shamballa Jewels bracelet worth more than €10,000.
Edging out the biggest stacks from Day 1A was Juan Navarrete who heads into Day 2 as the overall chip leader.
The title is essentially an honorary one, however, as Ilan Boujenah finished with 171,000 to Navarrete’s 173,200.
Navarrete surged up the leaderboard with an enormous double-up late in the day, getting kings all-in preflop against Steve O’Dwyer’s queens for a pot of about 150,000.
O’Dwyer, who’s been on an absolute heater since 2011, was left with just a few thousand chips and busted out shortly after.
Also on the leaderboard are a pair of familiar Frenchmen.
High-stakes legend David Benyamine finished the day with 154,500, good for a spot in the top five, and Nicolas Levi finished sixth with 150,300.
Benyamine padded his stack significantly near the end of the day when he eliminated his former High-Stakes Poker opponent Eli Elezra with set over set.
Former WPT winner Faraz Jaka also finished very well-stacked with roughly 110,000.
Grospellier, Elezra Headline Day 1B Eliminations
In addition to Eli Elezra, plenty of other big names dusted off their stacks before day’s end.
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier got unlucky to go broke, getting all-in with A-J against Ismail Erkenev’s A-T and watching not one but two tens hit the flop.
Recent EPT Copenhagen Mickey Petersen’s dreams of consecutive wins evaporated as he played and busted today.
WSOP bracelet winner Theo Jorgensen was eliminated by fellow Team PokerStars Pro Nacho Barbero.
Also out was Spanish WSOP star Leo Margets. She lost most of her chips when she got a shorter stack all-in with A♣ K♣ against pocket tens.
Margets flopped an ace but couldn’t dodge a ten on the river.
Other notables to fall short today include Victor Ramdin, Jamie Rosen, Ruben Visser, Jason Koon, Ivan Freitez, Eugene Katchalov, and Todd Terry.
Action continues tomorrow at the Casino Gran Madrid when the remaining 283 players will continue to play down to the money.
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