Casino Barcelona hosts WPT event
BARCELONA, Spain -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- WPT Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:WPTE) and Grup Peralada—most prestigious operator of casinos in Spain—announced today that Casino Barcelona will host its second World Poker Tour® (WPT) event May 21 – 27, 2008. With the success of this destination event on the WPT Season VI schedule last year, the WPT and Grup Peralada are bringing the Spanish Championship back to the Tour.
"The WPT Spanish Championship was a great success last year," said Steve Lipscomb, WPT Founder, President and CEO. "We are honored to extend our partnership with Grup Peralada and return to Spain with a regional tour stop that Catalonians can call their own."
Grup Peralada, with presence in various leisure time activities and also industrial sectors such as gaming, winegrowing, culture (International Music Festival of Peralada), hotels & wellness, golf, plastics or car industry, has vast experience organizing poker tournaments. With over 120 events every year--including three international tournaments--Grup Peralada, especially Casino Barcelona, is a recognized leader in high level poker events and sets the bar in the Spanish gaming sector.
The May event is expected to draw a field of over 400 players, including the new face of the WPT Poker Made Millionaire™, Poker Pro Antonio "the Magician" Esfandiari, as he represents worldpokertour.com at the tables.
The World Poker Tour official site, worldpokertour.com, is now running weekly online satellites to give players the chance to earn their €5000 main event buy in and €300 entry fee events for as little as €6. Casino Barcelona will also hold Super Satellite No Limit Hold'em (buy-in 200€+20€), with unlimited re-buys and add-on, starting from 3 p.m. on May 21 and May 22. The main event begins at Casino Barcelona on May 24 concluding with the non-televised final table on May 27.
The WPT Spanish Championship event in October, 2007, saw 226 players from around the globe put up €7,500 to compete, including pros like Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Isabelle Mercier, Juha Helppi, Christer Johansson, and many others. First place went to Austrian Markus Lehmann, who won €537,000 and the WPT Spanish Championship title.