Casper Hansen Takes Home 2008 WPT Spanish Championship
May 29th, 2008
Denmark’s Casper Hansen has won the WPT Spanish Championship in the Season VII curtain raiser event at the Casino Barcelona. Casper Hansen outlasted all 253 entrants to claim his maiden tournament victory and secure free passage to the 2009 WPT World Championship along with €400,000 in prize money.
Standings at the start of the final table’s play:
Stefan Mattsson - 1,253,000
Thiago Nishijima - 1,031,000
Casper Hansen - 604,000
Martin Lundenius - 421,000
Guy Sitbon - 351,000
Andres Vidal - 140,000
At the beginning of the final day’s play Stefan Mattson held the chip lead over Thiago Nishijima, who took a huge pot in Day 3 worth $1.2 million, easily the biggest hand of the tournament thus far.
First to be eliminated was Martin Lundenius, whose A10 fell short against Casper Hansen’s AK. Guy Sitbon lasted only a few hands longer falling to Nishijima’s ace to take 5th place. Andres Vidal’s pocket 10’s didn’t hold up against Nishijima’s pocket kings and was out in 4th place.
After taking the chip lead for a while after a couple of big wins, Thiago Nishijima’s luck ran out. Holding pocket aces he was all-in against Stefan Mattsson who turned over pocket queens. A queen was flopped and Nishijima was out in 3rd place.
Going into heads-up play Mattsson held a healthy chip lead but despite falling behind even further Hansen survived and climbed his way out of trouble and took over the chip lead after some big wins.
Finally Hansen was all-in with A2 against Mattsson’s A9. With only a 2 and a pair of 5’s in the flop it was enough for Hansen to take the title and top prize of €400,000, as well as a $25,500 seat to next year’s WPT World Championship.
Final Payouts:
Casper Hansen, Denmark - €400,000 + $25,500 WPT seat
Stefan Mattsson, Sweden - €220,000
Thiago Nishijima, Brazil - €112,300
Andres Vidal, Sweden - €87,400
Guy Sitbon, France - €75,000
Martin Lundenius, Sweden - €62,300
