EPT Barcelona always brings the crowds and the €1,650 PokerStars Open Main Event is officially a monster.
The last of the eight Day 1 flights played out today, building a field of 4,333 entries and a prize pool of €6,239,520.
That's down on last year, when 5,036 entries created a prize pool of €7,251,840, but it's still a huge event – and it's attracted a lot of big names that you might expect to be contesting bigger buy-ins.
648 players advanced through to Day 2, with Israel's Maor Zaharagi leading the way on a stack of 864,000.
The Pick 3 proving ground
The PokerStars Open Main Event will crown its champion on Saturday – the same day the EPT Barcelona Main Event gets underway. That could provide a few last-minute clues for anyone still working on their Pick 3 fantasy line-up.
A host of players on our EPT Barcelona Main Event draft list have made it through to Day 2, turning the PokerStars Open into a useful form guide before you lock in your three picks.
And there are some seriously tempting names near the top of the leaderboard. Every player below is available to draft for your Pick 3 team.
- 9th – Jamie Dwan: 682,000
- On a hot streak and added to the Pick 3 draft list by request.
- 25th – Youness Barakat: 575,000
- 37th – Thomas Eychenne: 504,000
- Eychenne won the EPT Barcelona Main Event last year.
- 40th – Han Feng: 501,000
- Feng is fresh off a final table appearance in the 2026 WSOP Main Event – a fifth-place finish for $2,250,000.
- 58th – Vladas Tamasauskas: 440,000
- 78th – Felix Schneiders: 400,000
- 113th – Dominik Panka: 340,000
- 146th – Congya Zhang: 301,000
- The last woman standing at the 2026 WSOP Main Event.
- 180th – Niklas Astedt: 248,000
- 184th – Matthew Wantman: 246,000
- 195th – Justin Saliba: 235,000
- 203rd – Ali Eslami: 230,000
- 250th – Biao Ding: 203,000
- 251st – Brock Wilson: 203,000
- Wilson won the €20K NLH event in Barcelona on Tuesday for €233,556 and finished 16th in this year's WSOP Main Event.
- 278th – Nick Palma: 184,000
- 290th – Martin Zamani: 176,000
- Zamani was the seventh-highest scoring fantasy player this summer.
- 318th – Sebastian Huber: 162,000
- 354th – Cherish Andrews: 149,000
- 357th – Victoria Livschitz: 147,000
- 556th – Maria Konnikova: 57,000
Pick 3 players running hot in Barcelona
If you're looking for an edge in picking your squad, the PokerStars Open Main Event is one to keep an eye on.
A deep run here is far from a guarantee of EPT Main Event success, of course, but we've seen it countless times at tournament series around the world: one deep run begets another.
And few players on our Pick 3 list have more momentum right now than Jamie Dwan.
Dwan will return for Day 2 with 682,000 chips, putting him among the top ten stacks in the field.
The tables in Barcelona have already been good to him this trip. Dwan finished fifth in Event #17: €20,000 NLH for €58,400 and fourth in Event #3: €1,100 NLH for €17,480.
Less than a month ago, he also took down a Super High Roller event at the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) stop in Coventry for £47,200.
And then there's his summer at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas. Dwan cashed six times in bracelet events, including a win in the $50,000 NLH High Roller for $2,276,961.
That's some serious form to bring into the biggest week of EPT Barcelona – and a pretty compelling case for a spot on your Pick 3 team.
Dwan's name was added to the list of available picks thanks to a request from a PokerOrg reader. And if you think we've missed someone, let us know. You can reach out to us on X/Twitter.
The reigning, defending champion
Thomas Eychenne has been on our draft list from the start.
In 2025, he triumphed over the field in the EPT Barcelona Main Event, taking home €1,217,175 after a heads-up deal with runner-up Sebastian Ionita.
As the defending champion, Eychenne already had one of the strongest Barcelona résumés on the Pick 3 draft list. Now that he's putting together another run in the PokerStars Open Main Event, he's looking even more tempting.
When Day 2 begins, the Frenchman will have one of the biggest stacks in the room, with 504,000 in front of him.
There are still a few days to go before you need to lock in your Pick 3 team, and plenty can change between now and then.
But with so many draftable players still alive in the PokerStars Open Main Event, this could be the best form guide you'll get before the EPT Main Event begins.
Dwan and Eychenne have put themselves firmly on the radar, but they're far from alone.
Keep an eye on who goes deepest – by the time the PokerStars Open champion is crowned on Saturday, it might be time to lock one of them into your Pick 3 line-up.
Images courtesy of Eloy Cabacas/Rational Intellectual Holdings/PokerStars
