Ten thousand chips. That was all Mohamed Zazri had left when he pushed them in from early position, one elimination away from the €9,900 min-cash. Josep Ruiz called on the button with A8, the board ran out JQKKA, and Zazri's pocket pair became the cruelest hand of the EPT Barcelona 2026 Main Event: the bubble.
The facts: 1,823 entries and €8.8 million on the line
With late registration closed, Europe's flagship tournament locked in its official numbers: 1,823 entries at €5,300 built a prize pool of €8,841,550. Zazri's exit in 272nd — played out hand-for-hand while the whole room watched — drew the line between leaving empty-handed and cashing. Everyone still standing secured at least €9,900.
Day 2 ended with 205 survivors returning today for Day 3. Poland's Grzegorz Kozieja leads with 1,040,000 chips — roughly 260 big blinds — ahead of France's Sarah Jarry on 926,000. The Latin American charge is alive and well too: Brazilians Raffael Pereira (627,000) and Vinicius Camargo (602,000) sit eighth and ninth overall, comfortably above the 266,780 average stack. The tournament runs through August 29.
Why it matters: the bubble is the most honest exam in tournament poker
Zazri's hand is a textbook page from our guide on how to play the tournament bubble: with 2.5 big blinds there is no room to wait for a perfect hand, and even correct plays pay the variance tax. Shoving a pocket pair there isn't a mistake — it's what the stack demands. The mistake would have been blinding away while praying for aces.
The flip side of the lesson belongs to the survivors. On the bubble, big stacks like Kozieja's manufacture chips by stealing from players who can't defend, while medium stacks choose between protecting the min-cash and playing for the title. That's ICM in its purest form — and it's why today's Day 3, with the money locked up, will play in a completely different gear: the min-cash pressure is gone, and the aggression comes back.
For any player working on their game, watching how a tournament's rhythm changes before and after the bubble is one of the best free lessons available — streaming live all week.
Want to break down the bubble spots with players who study the game seriously? Join the KryptoKings community and follow the Barcelona endgame with us.