Live poker got a makeover at EPT Barcelona today, as the new Spin & Go set was revealed and nine VIPs played in a special Spin-Off for a seat in the Spin & Go Championship set to play out at Casino Barcelona over the weekend.
James Hartigan was the host, and he explained how things would work. The nine players were split into groups of three. Each group would play three-handed turbos with 500 starting stacks. If you won a game, you got a spin for a cash prize. The first player to win three games would progress to the final table. The winner of that would get the seat in the Spin & Go Championship with a top prize of €100,000. Nick Walsh was on livestream commentary, and he’s set to play in the full tournament starting Saturday.
PokerStars unveiled its spectacular new Spin & Go set today.VIP Spin-Off round 1
The first group pitted two friends together — sports broadcaster Ade Oladipo and content creator Rory Jennings, along with German streamer Adam ‘SkylineTV’ Wolke.
Spin & Gos are normally fast and furious, but these first games were super slow — mainly because Oladipo hadn’t really played much poker before. His play was unorthodox, to say the least, but he knew it and kept asking the commentators to go easy on him.
We will as well, because he was hugely entertaining.
He rivered a straight in one hand against Jennings, who asked to see one card. Oladipo showed him the jack.
“The other one’s a bit violent,” he said.
“Is it a ten?” asked Jennings.
“Yes,” replied Oladipo, laughing.
Ade Oladipo might not have been a highly proficient poker player, but he was a huge amount of fun. It was a lot of fun — for Jennings, for Oladipo, and for everyone watching on stream. Maybe not so much for poor Wolke, who was stuck in the middle. Oladipo even slowrolled him with aces on the final hand of one of the games.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Wolke asked semi-seriously.
We’re not sure if Ade knew what he was doing, or that slowrolling isn’t exactly good etiquette, but it was fun nonetheless
When the dust had settled, Jennings was the first to three wins and he also pocketed the €2,000 jackpot spin. Oladipo won one and got €100 — “Money’s money,” he said with a shrug. Wolke also won one and got €100.
We’re sad we won’t see more of Oladipo here, so we’ll leave you with a quick Jennings/Oladipo double act.
VIP Spin-Off round 2
Round 2 saw the standard of play go up sharply. Battle rapper Alejandro ‘Papo MC’ Lococo was the star attraction, alongside eSports commentator Lutti and the ‘King of the Internet’ Knossi.
With close to $15 million in career earnings, including a monster $12 million score for winning the $500K buy-in at WSOP Paradise last year, Lococo was definitely the best player in the VIP Spin-Off.
He was also the first player out in the first game, which Knossi went on to win. Lococo came back with a huge three-way all-in win in the next game, making a runner-runner flush to eliminate Knossi and leave Lutti with just 15 chips. Lococo also won the next before Knossi made it two apiece.
It was always going to be Lococo, though. He made another flush to eliminate Lutti in the last game, with his 
getting there on the 
board.
Lutti might not have won a game, but watch the video below and tell us he’s not a winner at life.
VIP Spin-Off round 3
The final round saw PokerStars pro Giada Fang take on content creator AndyPSX and French poker player and streamer Julien ‘Jbzz’ Dupre.
Fang came close to winning it 3-1, but AndyPSX made it 2-2 before scooping the €2,000 jackpot spin.
That was just a temporary setback for Fang, who drew her strength from a small panda mascot with her at the table and won her way to the final.
There was one big surprise left at the end of an entertaining night. Instead of playing out to see who would go through to the Spin & Go Championship on Saturday, James Hartigan announced that all three would be given seats.
That means we’ll see Rory Jennings, Papo MC and Giada Fang in the Spin & Go Championship tomorrow when action starts at 1pm local time.
Sarah Herring will be on the floor with the rest of the PokerOrg crew to bring you all the biggest moments as they happen.
And if you need a quick refresher, Sarah’s got you in the video at the top of the article. See you tomorrow!
