Manuel Ferrari Leads EPT Barcelona Into Final Six
Jose Criado sits second and says he wants to become the first Spaniard to win the title on home soil.
The EPT Barcelona Main Event was cut from 13 players to six on Friday, with Manuel Ferrari still in front and Jose Criado chasing him into the final day. The six remaining players are guaranteed at least €278,950, while the winner will collect €1,370,050.
As reported in our previous update, Ferrari had already gone into Day 6 with the lead after Day 5 ended inside Casino Barcelona with 13 players left and €81,350 locked up apiece. PokerNews’ live blog said he stayed in pole position through the penultimate day and carried that advantage all the way to the finale.
Ferrari finished Day 6 at the top of the counts, and the coverage described his run as going wire to wire. He also came in with two PokerStars trophies already on his résumé, including PokerStars Open Malaga 2025 Main Event and the PokerStars Open Campione High Roller earlier this year.
Criado ended the day second with 15.7 million, after a burst of hands that pushed him above 10 million and narrowed Ferrari’s lead. He flopped quads with pocket fours, then used the same pair to crack aces and later pull off a bluff against Michael Dwyer, and he said after bagging that there was “no other option than winning the trophy and being the first Spanish winner.”
Xiaosheng Zheng sits third with 11.2 million, while Lukas van Eeden and Dwyer have 5 million and 4.5 million respectively. Nicolas Chouity is the short stack at 1.9 million, and as the only former EPT Main Event champion left he can still become only the fifth player to win two Main Event titles. Gerard Carbo’s run ended in seventh, the deepest Main Event finish of his career, while Joris Ruijs fell in ninth and Edward Pak brought Day 6 to within one elimination of conclusion.
Play resumes Saturday at 12:30 p.m. local time, with the final six set to return in Level 32 at 100,000/200,000 with a 200,000 big blind ante.
