The World Poker Tour is arguably one of the things that started the poker boom, and in 2009, nine seasons after it began, this series of high stakes poker tournaments that makes millionaires all over the world is still going strong.

With a variety of PokerStars sponsored poker tours and the World Series of Poker Circuit Tour to compete with, it was more important than ever that the WPT feature thrilling, fast-paced and big money tournaments everywhere it went.

WPT 2009 in Retrospect: Spanish Championship

It's long been felt that the term "World" Poker Tour is a little misleading, since most of the WPT tournaments take place in the continental United States. This reality was even more strongly felt when the Aviation Club tournament in Paris and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure dropped off the schedule.

In the 2009 season, the WPT got back to its international roots by opening with the WPT Spanish Championship, in Barcelona. Although this event was not televised, it did end up featuring a prize pool worth nearly two million dollars.

Spanish Championship Turnout

Perhaps because of the lack of television coverage or the perception of the WPT as a U.S based poker tour, not many of the 253 entrants who turned up to play in the Spanish championship were American.

In fact, fo the players who cashed, only two, Daniel Kelly and George Dunst, hailed from the United States, and neither made it as far as the final two tables.

Spanish Championship Results

What this resulted in was a truly international final table, with not one player of the final six sharing the same nationality. There was Thiago Nishijima of Brazil, Andres Vidal of Venezuela, Guy Sitbon of France, Martin Lundenius of Scotland, Casper Hansen of Denmark and Stefan Matsson of Sweden.

The highest finishing Spaniard was Raul Mestre, who placed 16th.

Ultimately, it was Casper Hansen who took down the first prize, worth 662,592 in U.S. dollars. Hansen was an experienced player, having made the final table of the EPT Dublin event the previous year.

He would go on to cash in the Danish Championships in Copenhagen a few months later, while the WPT would move back to a much more familiar venue, Las Vegas.