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Unibet Poker had the honour to present its most memorable LIVE event yet, The UNIBET OPEN IN MADRID, at the Gran Casino Madrid in Spain between the 16th -18th May. Back by popular demand, this event attracted almost 300 players and showed a growing trend for live tournaments under the Unibet brand!

At the time of writing, this was the biggest poker event ever to be arranged at the location.

While most of the celebrity players, together with Unibet’s Nordic Poker Team, played on Saturday’s Day 1B, most of the online qualifiers played in Friday’s day 1A. Most players opted to bring a friend, family member or partner to this tournament and there were constantly people on the rail cheering for “their” players.

Thursday night Unibet had arranged a welcoming party at the Mandalay Conference Center adjacent to Casino Gran Madrid, with food and drinks. Players from the Nordic region dominated the crowd, but there were also guests from all over the world, with Mark Spurr being the one who made the longest trip from his native South Africa. After a welcome speech by the Unibet Open Manager, Nils Andén, and a good bit of mingling, buses escorted the group to the very posh night club Buddha Bar in central Madrid for a good night out.

The first day at the Unibet Open started at 5:00 PM with 138 players seated in the Casino Gran Madrid, ready to fight their way towards Sunday’s Day 2. The long day stretched from 5:00 PM to 5:00 AM, with 29 players making it through all the obstacles to be invited back on Sunday afternoon 3:00 PM for day 2. 109 others weren’t that lucky. Local hero, Guillermo Gil kept his lead during the last couple of levels and headed into the next stage with close to 170k, while Victor Escudero, also Spain, was the only other player to have accumulated more than 100k at 136,500.

During day 1B the poker room at the Casino Gran Madrid was filled with well-known faces, poker celebrities and experienced players mixed with qualifiers for another day of poker action. It took until the early hours of Sunday morning before the 34 players were singled out from Day 1B to go through to the exciting finale of the Unibet Poker Open in Madrid together with the 29 players that made it through from day 1A. In total 63 players were selected to battle it out primarily to reach the final table, and of course, an attempt for the first prize of more than 100,000 euros. With Sebastian Mortelmans as the third best player in the total chip count list at the end of Day 1B, we moved on to the final.

With six nationalities represented, the final table of the Unibet Open in Madrid shows just how international this event is. Sweden can be proud of Per Sjogren, Rasmus Hagman and Jonas Nilsson for making it this far, while Finland shows off with two great players, Ville Wahlbeck and Marko Laine at the final table. Spain’s German Arcos Pardillo, Belgium’s Alex Beeckx, Holland’s Tim van der Riet and Portugal’s Joao Barbosa are also present and accompanying the only woman at the table, the Estonian Kairit Leibold for the final showdown.

After three days of exciting poker and a final heads-up that lasted 30 minutes during the early hours of Monday morning, Tim van de Riet eventually received 68,800 euros for his runner-up finish, and Joao Barbosa of Portugal walked away as the Unibet Open Madrid winner, with 115,800 euros. Here below you can see the top 10 players and their earnings:

Joao Barbosa                     Portugal               -              € 115,800
Tim van de Riet                 Netherlands       -              € 68,800
Per SJögren                        Sweden               -              € 39,000
Ville Wahlbeck                  Finland                 -              € 31,200
Kairit Leibold                      Estonia                 -              € 26,700
Alexander Beeckx           Belgium                -              € 22,300
Rasmus Hagman               Sweden               -              € 17,800
Marko Laine                       Finland                 -              € 13,400
Jonas Nilsson                     Sweden               -              € 9,000
German Arcos Pardillo   Spain                     -              € 6,700

Our Portuguese winner left the casino by car with the winner’s cheque under his arm a bit before the last bus took off from the Casino Gran Madrid at about 7:00 AM with a bunch of tired but happy Dutch players and the remaining exhausted, but also happy Unibet staff. Hopefully we will see you all at the next Unibet Open, to be held in Campione near of Milan in September for another great weekend of poker! Click here for more information on Unibet Open Milan!