"Poker players are the new sporting heroes."

Top players earn a lot of money and from all sides the are being pampered : Adventure rides on speed-boats, helicopter flights, luxury hotels, haute cuisine and prize money of millions of dollars, the stakes are high in the poker world.

For example, take the poker tournament that was recently organised by 888.com. For the prize pool they spended a smashing total of 3 million dollars. At the online portion of the tournament more then 2,200 poker players from around the world attended the game.

You could buy a direct ticket for the head tournament for a 1.000 dollars, but you could also qualify through several preliminary rounds on the Internet. Eventually the ten best places from the tournament are placed for the final, which was finished in the live chic casino of the jet set village Peralada (about 80 miles from Barcelona). For the winner of this final there was one million dollars ready making it the tournament with the highest amount of prize money in Europe.

The finalists were four Canadians, a Pole, an Italian,
a German and ... three Dutchmen: Bert van Doesburg (23) from Opijnen, Bart Wetsteijn (26) from Middelburg and Bjorn van Bavel (24) from Riel : Doesburg finished sixth and earned 90000 dollars, Wetsteijn was fifth and that earned him 120,000 dollars, while Van Bavel for his fourth place an amount of 180,000 dollars was credited. That's a great achievment for boys who all still in college or only just graduated (Wetsteijn).

CELEB STATUS
Besides from the nice cash price that the poker players won, they organisation made sure the finalist where pampered and having a great time at there stay. They Dutch where flown with a private aircraft from Rotterdam Airport to Girona, All players stayed for 4 days in the 5-star golf resort and in Peralada there were excursions with Miami Vice-like speedboats and
helicopters along the sunny Costa. The Modern poker player has no longer the C-status, but is treated as a celebrity.

According to Gilbert den Hertog of 888.com poker is a huge worldwide hype: "Poker has increased in recent years an has become so popular! In the Netherlands alone there are nearky half a million poker players at online games. There are now many online casinos and poker rooms, all organizing major tournaments. There is many competition. If you want the big players to participate in your tournament , then you should also stimulate them. You need to offer them something!
Because a good poker player is going to work very accurate, he calculates. How much is the prize money tournament in A? What can i win more at tournament B and wich hotel will i stay? Are there any other advantages? That is why we opted for this tournament with a fat prize pool of 3 million
dollar to which 1 million for the winner. The ten finalists
received each 22,500 euros for starting and that amount increased when remaining longer in the tournament. We also wanted to give the participating finalists something extra; fun trips, perfect food and drinks. This is why we distinguish ourselves from other tournaments. We treat the participants a bit like a star.

GROUPIES
A poker room like 888.com looks closely to the popularity
of channels as MTV. Den Hertog: "The contemporary poker players are generally young guests who are raised with MTV. The flashy of these programmes has also inspired us to make this tournament very catchy too ; profit benefits with high amount's of prizes and al lot ofextra things
like helicopter flights, an midday of golf and boat trips along the coast of Peralada. I compare the current hype of young
poker players with the emergence of the boyband as Take That, Backstreet Boys and New Kids On The Block in the nineties. In a while the new generation poker players is adored by groupies. Let's be clear about this: these boys earn money like water and that has an attractive effect."

For Bjorn van Bavel (student information management at the University of Tilburg) the tournament was a "totally kick". The resident of the village Riel qualified for the head tournament through a number of online preliminary rounds. His fee was only 25 dollars. Eventually, he was fourth, what brought him 180,000 dollars. A performance that also in his hometown Riel not remained unnoticed...
Since the final in the casino of Peralada was captured by twelve cameras, and could be followed through the Internet directly , the half village Riel went over to the village pub "Kerkzicht" ("Churchview"). The owner Franco Leemans had a big screen installed allowing the residents to follow the operations of their famous poker villagers in Spain.
That Bjorn van Bavel with a fine fourth place finisht as the best Dutchman, brought Riel in a real euphoric mood.
When Bjorn arrived one day after the tournament at the airport of Rotterdam, he was welcomed by friends and proud acquaintances from Riel. He was itself somewhat shocked : 'You can almost speak of a small orange feeling. Fantastic! I've really had a super week and have also had a 180,000 dollars in earnings. For I believe this was a top vacation because I had never anticipated. I must
also say that the atmosphere among the ten finalists was very
good. In that aspect, the organization did great. They had us pampered as a group, creating a "collegial" atmosphere .

T0P SP0RT AND THE JACKPOT
The 26-year old Bart Wetsteijn, graduated "business economist" from Middelburg, must not grumble. After the tourney he was a bit disappointed: "I would have liked for this tournament to break through. I have been in a couple of such tournaments and each time I just miss the top prizes. I can not complain with my fifth place, and the 120,000 dollars. But once you make it to the final table, you want only one thing: to win. You play eventually for the prize of 1 million dollars. I didn't see this as a pleasant trip. For me it is athletics.

The 23-year-old Bert van Doesburg, student rights at the
University of Nijmegen, grumps that he finisht sixth: "Money
is not the most important thing for me. But you still feel sad when your thrown out of the tournament. You sit in the heat
of the fight and then the emotions run high. But you not hear me complain. I managed my way to the final table and won 90,000 dollars.

A third of that amount, however, I must stand of to my
poker buddy. We always play together and have the agreement that all profits are divide on the basis of two thirds /
one third. Sometimes he wins and I enjoy it, the other time
just the other way around. Incidentally, I found this just crazy. For example, i had never been in a helicopter and that is a whole different level. "Was the World Poker Crown tournament on 888.com already a fantastic adventure for the three Dutchmen, for the Pole Pyotr Skiba it was much nicer.

This just 22-year old player came with his father to Peralada
and also managed to place himself for the finals via the internet. Everyone thought that the somewhat unpolished "Eastblock guy" was a outsider and would be the first to fly out of the tournament. But that proved to be a misconception. He finisht 3th and won 210,000 dollars:
ten times the annual salary of an average Polish worker.

Besides that the young Pole had the time of his live in Peralada. At home, he will tell that the new riches in Spain are mainly Russian bigshots that treat themselfes on Iranian caviar and French Champagne, but that the young pokerplayers now are not far removed from the same 'status'.