There’s no rest for the wicked in the World Poker Tour (WPT) as the tenth season has already got underway. Much of the gaming and poker industry were either gearing up for CalvinAyre.com’s first anniversary party or next month’s World Series of Poker (WSOP). Poker in the sunshine of Cataluña was on the minds of a number of players though.
Casino Barcelona is the venue for this season’s Spanish Championship and the €3,200 NLHE day 1A was led by the same man who was there at the start of the day. Relatively unknown on the circuit, Artur Koren ended the day on 122,800 and would have even had time to get home and watch the Seven Deadly Sins festivities online. Until it became too hot for the net of course! Koren holds a slight lead over former GUKPT main event side event winner Justin Tozelaar who has a stack of 112,500. Julien Simon Mariani lies in third with 111,400.
With only 94 players showing, we have a pretty good idea where a lot of them had snuck off to. It did mean that more players made it through to day 2 than didn’t (54) and players that turned up will be happy that they did. Organizers are bracing themselves for an influx of still drunk poker players later today as the chartered flights from Dublin fly triumphantly through whatever the volcanos have in store. A note to the owners of the Casino Gran Barcelona: get the sick buckets and bloody mary’s at the ready. Today could be a long day!
