After a disappointing turnout on Day 1a of the European Poker Tour (EPT) stop in Madrid, Spain, Day 1b of the tournament saw a much larger field take to the poker tables at the Casino Gran Madrid, putting the final attendance tally at 477 players. The turnout was so good on Day 1b that tournament officials had to create a second tournament area to accommodate all of the 352 players.

Of the 352 players who entered the tournament on Day 1b 197 managed to make it through the day and will be back at the tables on Wednesday for Day 2, joined by the 67 players who survived Day 1a of the EPT Madrid.

Unlike Day 1a, Day 1b saw a number of big-names rocket up the leader-board with David Benyamine, Taylor Paur, Angel Guillen, and Nicholas Levi all ending the day in the Top 10. Some other big names that made it through to Day 2 were Faraz Jaka, McLean Karr, David Vamplew, Mike McDonald, Jose “Nacho” Barbero, Johnny Lodden, Joao Barbosa, Todd Terry, Dominik Nitsche, Olivier Busquet, Rupert Elder, Oleksii Kovalchuk, Kevin MacPhee, James Sudworth, Melanie Weisner, Martin Jacobson, Kevin Vandersmissen, Jake Cody, Toby Lewis, Mohsin Charania, and Michael Tureniec.

The chip-leader heading into Day 2 will be Spain’s Juan-Navarette Azon, who bagged up over 170k in chips after winning a massive pot against POY candidate Steve O’Dwyer. Azon was in the enviable position of getting his entire stack into the middle with Pocket Kings, while O’Dwyer could only cross his fingers and hope for his Pocket Queens to improve –which they didn’t. Azon used the hand to take over the chip-lead while O’Dwyer was left crippled and eliminated shortly thereafter.

Here is a look at the Top 10 chip counts from Day 1b:

1. Juan-Navarrete Azon – 173,200

2. Ilan Boujenah – 171,000

3. Taylor Paur – 167,300

4. David Benyamine – 159,500

5. Angel Guillen – 151,800

6. Nicolas Levi – 150,300

7. Ilan Rouah – 133,800

8. Yann Dion – 133,100

9. Javier Rojas Mederos – 128,600

10. Jordi Martinez – 127,300

72 players will make the money in the tournament, with the lion’s share going to the final table scheduled to be played on Saturday. Here is a look at the payouts awaiting the Top 10 finishers in the EPT Madrid Main Event:

* 1st place: €545,000

* 2nd place: €365,000

* 3rd place: €205,000

* 4th place: €140,000

* 5th place: €115,000

* 6th place: €92,000

* 7th place: €69,450

* 8th place: €48,000

* 9th place: €35,000

* 10th place: €35,000

Day 2 of the tournament is already underway in Madrid, so stay tuned to PokerNewsBoy.com for more updates from the EPT Madrid Championship.

Tags: Angel Guillen, Barbero, Casino Gran Madrid, Charania, David Benyamine, EPT, Johnny Lodden, Juan Navarrete, Kovalchuk, Macphee, Madrid Spain, Mederos, Mike McDonald, Mohsin, Nitsche, Paur, Poker Tables, Toby Lewis, Tournament Officials, Weisner

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2012 at 8:21 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.