Argentina's Mario Lopez is the champion of the Estrella Barcelona Main Event - thanks to besting a record-breaking field of 3,292 players over six days of play!! The 38-year-old doctor and businessman had nearly $1 million in tournament winnings prior to this tournament, and he boosted his bankroll with €408,000 after defeating John Forst heads-up.
Forst began the final table with almost one-third of the chips in play but only had 41.1 million to Lopez 40.9 million when the heads-up battle was about to start. With the big gap between first- and second-payouts in mind (1st: €491,000, 2nd: €256,500), the duo agreed to a two-way deal (€338k each, €70k left play for). Lopez took command as soon as the cards were back in the air, then he eventually finished the job with ace-queen versus Forst's ace-six.
Event #5: Estrellas Main Event €1,000 + €100
Entrants: 3,292
Prize pool: €3,193,240
Places paid: 487
1. Mario Lopez (Argentina) €408,000*
2. Jonn Forst (Austria) €338,000*
3. Knut Nystedt (Norway) €168,000
4. Jose Carlos Garcia (Poland) €139,500
5. Eduard Sanchez (Spain) €116,540
6. Kondah Abdelhadi (Morocco) €93,600
7. Simon Sennhauser (Switzerland) €71,400
8. Daniel Selles (Spain) €52,100
*= denotes a two-way deal
source: pokerstarsblog
