The latest news from the Poker scene in Spain

The first round of the Spanish Poker Championship 2011 sponsored by Eurosuperpoker.com, was held at the atmospheric venue of the Casino Castell de Perelada (the casino is housed in a medieval castle and has a moat.). Located just on the border with France, the Perelada event always attracts a sizable contingent of French players, and this year one of them Yousef  Mekrelouf, ran out winner of the event.

Yousef was on deadly form, knocking out 13 of his 271 rivals personally so also took the title of “Matador” for the event, before quickly dispatching Jordi Martínez in the heads up and collecting the winner’s cheque for €44, 320.

In Madrid Pin Ricardo Escobar took victory at the PokerStars Tour held at the Casino Gran Madrid Torrelodones. He also picked up €103,000 for his efforts after a final table that lasted for 12 hours. The final table was a truly international affair with players from Spain, the UK, Austria and Holland, and their diplomatic skills were sorely tested when a technical problem with the TV crew covering the event forced the tournament to be stopped for several hours. The game finally got going again in the early hours with Escobar finally winning as dawn broke at 8am!

Leading Spanish Poker magazine Planet Poquer also announced its awards for 2010.  Vidal Haykel won Player of the Year (and was the front cover for February) while Javier Tazuna “Muckedboy”, Oscar Blanco and  Raul Paez were named Best Online Player, Best Cash Player and Best Tournament Player respectively.

Other awards included a Lifetime Achievement Award for a Cayetano Garcia, while  Grand Casino Barcelona, PokerStars and  Paradise Poker also collected awards.
 

Despite concerns and criticism from the sector, the Spanish Government approved the new “Ley de Juego” gaming law.  New taxes will be placed on gaming companies, the majority of them online, calculated on the basis of gross income. The companies want to be taxed on what money is left after they had paid out their prizes. Some say they pay out 80% in prizes and so if they are taxed on 100% of their income it makes business impossible.


Spain has still to legislate on Internet gambling so official figures for the industry are not available. It’s estimated that 200,000 gamblers spent €575 million in Spain last year, and the Tax Man wants to get his hands on it!