For the first time ever the World Poker Tour brought the championship to Spain in October 2007. The WPT Spanish Championship was held at the Casino Barcelona, in Barcelona, Spain from October 11, 2007 – October 16, 2007. A turnout of 226 poker hopefuls, who each bought in for €7,500, made the 5-day event a roaring success with a total pool prize of €1,665,500. By the end of the championship, there were 27 payouts.

Event organizers were concerned about whether big name poker professionals would make the trans-Atlantic trip to Spain for this inaugural event. Their fears were allayed when the likes of 3 WPT titles holder, Gus Hansen, and poker pro, Steve Sung, made the final table.

At the start of the final game, there were six contenders for the title and the top prize of €537,000 ($789,592). Vladimir Poleshchuk was seated in Seat 1 with Christer Johansson in Seat 2. Steve Sung took Seat 3 and Gus Hansen was in Seat 4. Ludovic Lacay and winner, Markus Lehmann, were in Seats 5 and 6 respectively.

The distribution of the chips at the start of final game was:

• Gus Hansen - 962,000 chips
• Christer Johansson - 855,000 chips
• Steve Sung - 670,000 chips
• Ludovic Lacay - 400,000 chips
• Markus Lehmann - 329,000 chips
• Vladimir Poleshchuk - 176,000 chips

Poleshchuk was the first to exit with winnings of €83,900 ($117,877). Lacay knocked out Hansen into fifth place with cash prize of €100,600 ($141,340). Sung went home in fourth place with €117,400 ($164,943) and Johansson headed for the door with €151,000 ($212,150).

At heads up play, two Europeans, Lehmann, from Austria and Lacay from France, played to decide the championship title. Lacay had the chips advantage with 1,809,000 chips to Lehmann’s 1,583,000 chips. The showdown between the Austrian and the Frenchman took only 22 hands before Lehmann’s winning hand of K hearts 8 diamonds beat Lacay’s 1 spades 5 clubs. 3 clubs at the turn and 4 hearts on the river meant Lehmann clinched the Spanish Championship title. Lacay departed for France with cash of €295,200.

Markus Lehmann, in his forties with a birthday falling on June 26 annually, hails from Liechtenstein and was the top direct sales distributor of Herbalife, making it to the Chairman’s Club in 1997. He’s currently engaged to Nora and has one son. Lehmann enjoys skiiing and golfing and plays poker as a hobby which he refined through reading more than one hundred books and watching televised poker.

-- Reinu C.