After a lengthy hiatus, the European Poker Tour has returned to action at Casino Barcelona in Spain. The €5,000 buy-in event was quite popular with the players and, as of Wednesday, had played down to the final 28 players. Leading the way into the Day Five action on Thursday at the 2026 EPT Barcelona will be an online qualifier, Jose Criado, who will face the slings and arrows of two former EPT Barcelona champions, Poker Hall of Famer John Juanda and Sebastian Malec, if he is to make it to the final table.
Massive Field, Massive Prize Pool
Players were certainly ready for the EPT’s return to the poker stage. With two Day One flights, a total of 1,297 unique players were registered into the rolls of Casino Barcelona. As there was a single reentry option for players on both Day One flights, many people took a second chance if it was required; 526 reentries were added to the books, creating the seventh-largest EPT Main Event in the vaunted tour’s history.
That massive outpouring of players also created a massive prize pool. The final prize pool came in at € 8,841,550, and it was interesting to see where the players came from. Seventy-nine countries’ flags were unfurled for the EPT Barcelona Main Event, with Italy and France bringing in the most entrants (with 149 and 141 entries, respectively).
Of course, the most important thing is how many players would be paid in the tournament. 271 players were booked for a line on their poker resume and some cash in their pockets. The min-cash was €8,600, rising to a first-place prize of over €1.3 million.
Before Day Four’s festivities, several players had taken their part in that massive prize pool home. Maria Konnikova, EPT champion Gilles Simon, and Dietrich Fast all took home a min-cash. In contrast, others such as Benjamin Spragg, Dario Sammartino, Anton Wigg, EPT champion Barny Boatman, and Parker Talbot fell short of the final table but still took home a bit more cash as a consolation.
But there was more to come with the Day Four play.
Malec, Juanda Look for Second Title
67 players started the day on Wednesday at the 2026 EPT Barcelona Main Event, with 66 of them looking up at Fabricio Nociolini of Brazil leading the way with his 2.51 million in chips. One of the players beneath him, however, had been here before. Malec, who was the champion of the EPT Barcelona in 2016, sat in fourth place at the start of the day and was a significant threat with his 1.95 million stack. Add in players like 2015 EPT Barcelona champion Juanda, Mark Teltscher, and Matas Cimbolas, and there were plenty of challenges remaining in the field.
Teltscher nearly became one of the early casualties of Day Four play. Paolo Boi popped the betting and Teltscher three-bet the action pre-flop, only to see Boi hit again with a four-bet. Teltscher was not going to be pushed off his hand, moving all in, and Boi was happy to make that call to put Teltscher at risk:
Boi (MP): pocket Aces
Teltscher (hijack): pocket Jacks
Things did not look good for the British champion…that is, until the flop. The J-J-4 brought everything, and then some, for Teltscher: quad Jacks. Boi could only look on helplessly as a trey on the turn completed the stunning rundown and left Boi drawing dead. After the hand, Teltscher rocketed up the board to over a million chips, while Boi fell to about 660K; Boi would eventually depart in 43rd place.
With those newfound chips, Teltscher became a highly active part of the Day Four story. He would clash with Juanda, who would hit a set of fours on the turn to clip Teltscher’s pocket tens and move Juanda over two million in chips. The next clash would be Teltscher’s final one, however, and it would help to push the chip leader for Day Four into his position.
Criado would open the action to 60K in early position and Teltscher, in the small blind, three-bet him to 180K. Criado moved all in for his remaining chips and Teltscher, with a lesser stack, made the call. When the cards came up, it was another cooler that Teltscher faced:
Teltscher (small blind): pocket Queens
Criado (early position): pocket Kings
Much like his hand with Juanda, Teltscher never found what he needed. The board did tease him with a 10-10-9-J flop and turn, but Teltscher would not find any of his straight outs (a King would have given Criado a full house) nor a lady to give him a boat with the six that came on the river. In two pivotal hands, the 2005 EPT London champion headed to the rail, finishing in 34th place but wondering what might have been.
Criado, now stacked with 4.8 million chips, would ride that stack to the close of business. As the Day Five action starts on Thursday, here is how everything will line up:
1. Jose Criado (Spain), 5.045 million
2. Gerard Carbo (Spain), 4,815 million
3. Joris Ruijs (Netherlands), 4.625 million
4. Edward Pak (USA), 3.585 million
5. Barbara Akemi (Brazil), 3.445 million
6. Manuel Ferrari (Italy), 2.805 million
7. Henok Tekle Mariam (Netherlands), 2.46 million
8. Matas Cimbolas (Lithuania), 2.26 million
9. Fabricio Nociolini (Brazil), 2.165 million
10. Vinicius Goncalves (Brazil), 2.09 million
Juanda is lurking in thirteenth place with his 1.855 million stack, and Malec is in seventeenth place while holding 1.485 million in chips. Both men are serious contenders for the final table, if not their second Barcelona titles.
Day Five is underway as we speak, and all the action will be on the PokerStars Live stream on YouTube. The champion of the 2026 EPT Barcelona will be crowned on Saturday, so there is plenty of time to get caught up on the action out of Spain as the European Poker Tour returns to the poker stage.
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