First 2008 WPT event taken by the Ghost

05/29/2008

Casper "Poker Ghost" Hansen lived up to his nickname at the Casino Barcelona in that Spanish coastal city this week, taking a large entry field of 253 by surprise to win the first WPT event of the year, the World Poker Tour Spanish Championship.

In his biggest coup to date, the young Danish player truimphed in a final heads up against Stefan Mattsson in the Euro 5 300 buy-in event to take home the honours and a paycheck of Euro 420 395 ($655 720), leaving Mattsson with a second place prize of Euro 222 210 ($346 621). Third placed Thiago Nishijima was also in six-figure territory with Euro 113 392 ($176 934) paypacket.

The win was no mean achievement, considering that the entry field included names like Annette Obrestad, Carlos Mortensen, Juha Helppi, Antonio Esfandiari and Patrik Antonius.

Hansen, who has previously placed in the 2007 European Poker Tour Dublin, qualifying for that event through a Pokerstars online tournament, described his playing style as "relaxed and sloppy," somewhat deceptive when viewed against his boldly incisive and sharp moves at the table.