Sylvain Berthelot Wins Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event

The 2024 PokerStars Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona €1,100 no-limit hold’em main event attracted a massive field of 7,138 total entries, building a prize pool of nearly $7.6 million when rendered in UD dollars. After eight starting flights and three more days of action at the European Poker Tour festival at Casino Barcelona, that sea of players was narrowed down to a single champion: France’s Sylvain Berthelot. Bethelot secured the title and $554,139 in prize money for the win. This was far and away his best live tournament score.

Bethelot struck a three-way deal with Spain’s Santiago Nadal and two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani that redistributed most of the remaining prize pool, leaving $49,914 and the title to play for. Zamani was the chip leader at the time, and locked up the largest guaranteed payday of $514,208. He ultimately finished third, though, while Santiago survived to heads-up play. Santiago then ran the nut straight into the nut flush of Berthelot to hit the rail in second place ($437,924).

Berthelot was also awarded 1,320 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion. This was his first POY-qualified score of the year, and was enough to catapult him within striking distance of the top 300 in the 2024 standings presented by Global Poker.

The final day of this tournament began with 19 players remaining and Nadal in the lead. Berthelot was the shortest stack to to start the day, but had worked his way into the top half of the leaderboard by the time the last nine contenders converged onto a single table.

Zamani scored four of the first five knockouts to enter four-handed play as the chip leader. The next big clash saw Zamani open from the button with 97 and called a three-bet shove from PokerStars ambassador Parker Talbot out of the big blind. Talbot rolled over A10. The board ran out 99410Q and Zamani’s trip nines earned him yet another elimination. Talbot hit the payout desk to collect $251,970 for his fourth-place showing. This was his fifth final-table finish of 2024. The 660 POY points he earned in this event grew his total to 2,532, which is good for 75th place in the 2024 standings.

The final three hashed out the deal before resuming play. Not long after they shook hands on the agreement, Berthelot was hoisting the trophy. Zamani increased his career tournament earnings to over $6.5 million with this performance, while Nadal’s lifetime haul grew to nearly $1.7 million.

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Photo credits: Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd. / Eloy Cabacas.