Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007

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World Poker Tour hosts Spanish Championship

Barry Greenstein is in the house for the WPT Spanish Championship.

By Sarah Polson

The World Poker Tour is making its first stop in Spain with the Spanish Championship at the Casino Barcelona. Day 1a started today and nearly 100 poker players have anted up the €7,800 buy-in for a crack at a WPT title.

While Day 1a's turnout is a bit on the low side, there are a few pros spotted already among those numbers. Barry Greenstein, Joe Beevers, Ram Vaswani, Alex Jacob, Steve Zolotow, Pam Brunson, Patrik Antonius and Vanessa Rousso have all settled in to play today.

Annette Obrestad was checking out the field, but won't be putting her newly made money from her World Series of Poker Europe Main Event win into the mix until tomorrow.

Shannon Shorr also alerted his blog readers that he was in Barcelona, having decided at the last minute to check out the tournament because he likes the city. He hasn't been spotted yet, so perhaps he'll be among the Day 1b crowd on Friday.

The anemic turnout is a little reminiscent of the WPT Turks & Caicos event just a couple weeks ago that saw a $1 million guaranteed prize for the winner turn into a vote over how the players wanted to split a prize pool that didn't quite reach that million-dollar mark.

Both events are new to this season's tour, however. In the past, the WPT has taken its overseas events to France, and its only foray into the Caribbean has been to Paradise Island for the PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure.

While the WPT's relationship with the Aviation Club de France has always been good, the legal uncertainty surrounding online gambling and online gambling advertising in the nation left the WPT looking for another European venue.

This year, the PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure is a part of the European Poker Tour. An odd choice for a venue for the EPT, except that PokerStars is the tour's primary sponsor.

Regardless of the turnout, the winner of the Spanish Championship event will be ranked among some of poker's best players. This season's WPT winners so far are:

• Mirage Poker Showdown: Jonathan Little, $1,066,295
• Mandalay Bay Poker Championship: Shawn Buchanan, $768,775
• Bellagio Cup III: Kevin Saul, $1,342,320
• Legends of Poker: Dan Harrington, $1,600,365
• Gulf Coast Poker Championship: Bill Edler, $747,615
• Borgata Poker Open: Roy Winston, $1,575,280
• Turks & Caicos Poker Classic: Rhynie Campbell, $411,675

As usual, PokerListings.com will be there all day every day of the tournament to bring you live updates, blogs, interviews, photos and more. No matter how many or how few players show up, our tournament reporters will bring you the news in the Live Tournaments Section.

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