| Level 18: | 6,000/12,000/12,000 |
| Entries: | 41/279 |
| Prizes: | €50,000 |
The Castellón stop of the 2026 PartyPoker Tour kicked off with a bang at the Orenes Gran Casino on October 5, as a huge field of 279 entries gathered for Day 1a of the €150 buy-in, €50,000 guaranteed Mini Main Event, making it the third largest Mini Main Event starting flight field in tour history, bettered only by two flights in Madrid.
When the dust settled after 18 levels of play, Marius-Laurentiu Dinu of Romania (775,000) led 41 Day 2 qualifiers, after a double knockout on the bubble brought play to a close.
Dinu is closely followed by Spanish duo Rafael Lopez (745,000) and Alberto Martinez (717,000), while PartyPoker Tour team member Rebecca Hardisty (401,000) found a top-ten stack. Hardisty recently won the Sunday Party online at PartyPoker, and will be hoping to follow up with a victory in the live arena.
Dinu accumulated his chips after he pulled a miracle river on the bubble against fellow big stack Axel Reese, making a superior full house to vault him to the top of the counts.
End of Day Chip Counts – €150 Mini Main Event Day 1a
The full list of the 41 qualifiers, all of whom have secured a minimum cash of €300, is set out below:
| Position | Player | Country | Chip Count |
| 1 |  Marius-Laurentiu Dinu | Romania | 775,000 |
| 2 |  Rafael Lopez | Spain | 745,000 |
| 3 | Alberto Martinez | Spain | 717,000 |
| 4 | Hady Sirbu | Romania | 601,000 |
| 5 | Radu Angel | Romania | 500,000 |
| 6 |  Axel Reese | Germany | 481,000 |
| 7 | Jose Maria Sanchez | Spain | 480,000 |
| 8 | Daniel Bellovi | Spain | 435,000 |
| 9 |  Rebecca Hardisty | United Kingdom | 401,000 |
| 10 |  Mhamed Larag | Estonia | 400,000 |
| 11 | Sergio Fernandez | Spain | 288,000 |
| 12 | Jesus Arcadio | Spain | 282,000 |
| 13 |  Marcin Jackowski | Poland | 273,000 |
| 14 | Jose Luis Gonzalez | Spain | 270,000 |
| 15 | Pedro Moliner | Spain | 268,000 |
| 16 | Florin Musca | Romania | 268,000 |
| 17 | Antonio Pena | Spain | 258,000 |
| 18 | Rares Pauceanu | Romania | 243,000 |
| 19 | Augusto Sevilla | Spain | 237,000 |
| 20 | Alin Mitrache | Romania | 223,000 |
| 21 | Jake Flockhart | United Kingdom | 221,000 |
| 22 | Jose Luis Carrasco | Spain | 219,000 |
| 23 | Victor Serrano | Spain | 213,000 |
| 24 | Juan Pedro Hernandez | Spain | 212,000 |
| 25 | Abraham Garcia | Spain | 207,000 |
| 26 | Francisco Blazquez | Spain | 187,000 |
| 27 | Sebastian Wostenfeld | Germany | 185,000 |
| 28 | Salvador Garcia | Spain | 185,000 |
| 29 | Daniel Gil | Spain | 182,000 |
| 30 | Alexandre Carceller | Spain | 156,000 |
| 31 |  Nuno Afonso | Portugal | 148,000 |
| 32 |  Luis Fernando Burbano | Colombia | 144,000 |
| 33 | Ismael Canay | Spain | 107,000 |
| 34 | Florin-Nicolae Iancu | Romania | 98,000 |
| 35 | Sebastian Hitz | Germany | 93,000 |
| 36 | Nicolae-Adrian Lacatus | Romania | 90,000 |
| 37 | Thomas Ehmann | Germany | 76,000 |
| 38 |  Mohamed Sidi | Morocco | 59,000 |
| 39 | Jorge Gisbert | Spain | 46,000 |
| 40 | Jose Maria Escrig | Spain | 27,000 |
| 41 | Oscar Sanchez | Spain | 21,000 |
Two further Mini Main Event starting flights take place on October 6, with players sitting down to a 40,000 starting stack at blind level 100/200.
Day 1b gets underway at 2 p.m. local time, with 30-minute levels in play, and turbo flight Day 1c, featuring 20-minute levels, kicks off at 7 p.m. A total of 15% of the field is scheduled to qualify from each starting flight.
The final starting flight is hyper flight Day 1d, which features 15-minute levels and is scheduled for noon on October 7, before Day 2 kicks off at 6 p.m. on the same date.
poker.pro will be on the floor bringing you coverage of all the action and big moments, so stay tuned!
