Team PokerStars SportStar Rafael Nadal played his first real-money tournament over the weekend at the brand new Spanish Championship of Online Poker (ESCOOP). The €200 buy-in Main Event saw a field of 1,842 players, all of whom received 20,000 chips each.
Nadal had a decent start in the tournament as he eliminted one player with a set of 10's against a pair of aces. Then it didn't take long before he won a big pot with KK against QQ. At this time, Rafa had 31,000 chips and things were looking pretty good. However, it didn't take long before he got caught in a bad spot which cost him his entire stack.
According to a Spanish news site, Rafa went all in with AK on a 3AJ flop. Two opponents called; one had JJ and the other one had 33. The turn card was the A and gave Nadal a few outs, but the 2 on the river sent him to the rail. In general, Rafa's first real-money tournament on PokerStars was a success and things can only get better now!
By the way... a player with the alias "Tonet_1981" ended up winning the tournament for €49,994 - after making a heads-up deal with "capanota1".