It's quarter past 11 o'clock on a Saturday night in Barcelona. The sidewalks and streets are alive with life on either side of the casino, and up above our location the floors are similarly stuffed with light and sound and elation.

Down below where we're located the scene is similar, even for those playing out Day 2 of the Estrellas Barcelona Main Event. Those remaining has been going at it since noon, and while the table talk will not be as animated because it was earlier within the day, the ambience mainly poker site remains to be carnival-like, partly due to the excited (and enormous) Barcelona Cup field filling among the room.

Just now came the last break of the evening, and with two one-hour levels to go, there have been 154 left within the ESPT Main. Two Team PokerStars Pros were among them -- Andre Akkari and Matthias De Meulder -- despite what may well be called less ideal circumstances.

We'd been watching De Meulder nursing below average chips for a while. Having big stacks to his right and Sebastien Sabic at his table to contend with, the Belgian did not have it so easy.

Matthias making do

He nonetheless returned from the similar stack of 170,000 or so with which he'd been battling for a while.

Akkari meanwhile was up around 500,000 a short while ago -- only a touch below the typical -- but he, too, have been coping with especially gritty foes. Pablo Gordillo sits across from him, still sporting big chips. And to Akkari's immediate right sits a well-known rival, Latin American Poker Tour Season 7 Chile Main Event champion Mario Lopez of Argentina, working with about 3 times the stack of his fellow LAPT star.

Lopez and Akkari, sharing the evening with uneven stacks

Among the cashers thus far, Rumen Nanev (482nd, €1,755), Martins Adeniya (430th, €1,820), Simeon Naydenov (376th, €1,915), Danyl Amri (360th, €1,915), Erik Van den Berg (354th, €1,915), Juan Manuel Pastor (343rd, €1,915), EPT7 London Main Event champion David Vamplew (268th, €2,075), and Carlos Mora Alvarez (267th, €2,075) were all sent railward before dinner.

Then because the evening meal Morten Mortensen (232nd, €2,270), EPT1 Barcelona Main Event champion Alex Stevic (217th, €2,585), Mikael Azoulay (207th, €2,585), Emil Ohlsson (197th, €2,585), Abdelkader Madjahed (187th, €2,585), and Claus Carlsen (168th, €2,940) were some of the eliminated.

Players today returned from the break, and alas for De Meulder he soon was felted, too, perhaps to stroll out into that warm, vibrant evening, but not before a snappy adios to Dermot Blain.

Good game, and good night

He leaves behind Blain, Akkari, and the rest, all still enlivened by the concept of the nearly half-million Euro prize awaiting the winner.

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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Estrellas Poker Tour]