Yorky Pud

It seems the fashionable trend in poker at the moment involved uprooting major festivals and find them a new home. There have been rumours the World Series of Poker will be moving from the Rio sooner rather than later, thr World Series of Poker is now going to be held in France and now the European Poker Tour's crowning jewel, the Grand Final, will be leaving Monte Carlo and heading for Madrid.

Monte Carlo has been the home of the €10,600 EPT Grand Final for the past six seasons but just before the start of Day 1a of EPT Copenhagen it was revealed that this would no longer be the case and that the Casino Gran Madrid would be the new venue for Season 7 flagship event, which will run between May 7-12th. Although Monte Carlo was extremely popular with the players and all who were involved with the event, there was not one person who had not complained about the ridiculous prices charged in the principality, with some reporting the cost of a glass of beer being €40 and even bottles of water being upwards of €15. The costs to the sponsors and the media coverage will have run into hundreds of thousands of Euros.

The EPT CEO John Duthie opted to not mention the cost of running the Grand Final in Monte Carlo as a reason for switching to Madrid, instead he issued a press release that said, “We wanted somewhere new, dynamic, and inspiring and knew that Madrid would tick all the boxes for the travelling poker player, regardless of age or desires. The same familiar team will be running the event and the schedule will, I am sure, provide something for everyone.”

Having the Grand Final in Madrid is expected to bring in an extra €10,000,000 to the local economy as thousands of affluent young men and women descend on it for a week of poker. The Mayor of Madrid, Carlos Galbeño acknowledged this in his statement to the poker community saying, “The fact that the Casino Gran Madrid Torrelodones has been chosen to host the Grand Final of the seventh season of the European Poker Tour is great news for the Madrid community. However, it is especially important for our town, because not only will the event have a huge economic impact, it will also allow us to project our city as a prime tourist spot in Europe.”

A representative for PokerStars, the sponsor of the EPT, posted in a thread on the Two Plus two forums that highlighted a number of reasons Madrid was given the nod over Monte Carlo. They included the fact in Monte Carlo there are no cash games allowed and only Hold'em may be played, the fact the Monte Carlo is not in the EU so many were left with large tax bills after making it to the money something that will not be the case in Madrid and they even mentioned the infamous €30 cheeseburger as another reason!

At least year's Grand Final, Lebanese professional poker player Nicolas Chouity beat a field of 848 players to claim the title and the €1,700,000 first place prize, eventually edging out Austria's Josef Kinlger heads-up. If the figures being banded around at the moment are accurate then the Grand Final Main Event could see at least 1,000 entrants meaning the prizepool would be a staggering €10,000,000!