The people of Spain went to the polls today to elect a new Prime Minister. While the people put their cross against a name, several hundred miles away one of their countrymen was perusing an altogether different title, one that no election can bestow, the title of official IFP world poker champion.

Tonight that title belongs to Spaniard Raul Mestre (right), a talented professional who despite playing with a permanent expression of exasperation, like he’s holding his breath, is perhaps his country’s sharpest poker mind. Tonight he’s $250,000 richer and the holder of poker’s newest title.

His heads-up opponent Victoria Coren (left), had a right to argue she had been unlucky not to have gone one step further. But grace and good humour had become the hallmark of this final, certainly on the part of Coren, (as anyone who saw the presentation of medals could testify), who saluted the victor in the same way as the crowd that had watched every minute.It brings to an end a superlative four days of the IFP World Championships. It started with the Nations Cup, a unique duplicate poker contest won by a gifted German team, and it ended tonight with a first champion and a mood of anticipation as we look towards The Table in 2012.Before that the details of the day will grace the history books they have now been written into.

It started in dramatic fashion. Kinichi Nakata, from Japan, departing in ninth place minutes into the day. That was ahead of Tim Reese, one of two members of Team Germany, who went in eighth. Nakata’s countryman Takuo Serita followed in seventh place.

Sandra Naujoks had played flawlessly up to this point, and when she got her chips in with pocket kings against Mestre’s eight-nine, it looked like the double-up she seemed entitled to would arm her well for a run on the title.

But Mestre found that crucial drop of luck at the perfect time, flopping an eight and rivering another. Naujoks, who managed a smile, was suddenly out.

The main benefactor? That would be Marsha Waggoner.

Waggoner, one of the grand dames of poker, had nursed her short stack for most of the afternoon, hand rearing it to health with a double up before it began again to fade. Naujoks’s shock departure moved her up a place, into fifth, capping a commendable performance.

When Slavko Tomic departed in fourth (another player cursed by a short stack), it left arguably the three best players of the day – Coren, Mestre and Igor Trafane.

Trafane (right), who serves as President of the Confederação Brasileira de Texas Hold’em, impressed yesterday and did the same today. Were it not for two big hands we might now be writing about the world title heading to Brazil.

In the first, Mestre was rivered by Mestre. The second, some time later, was even crueller. Coren moved in with ace-queen and Trafane called with ace-queen. But crucially Coren’s cards were both spades. She wished for a chop, but got the exact opposite; the flop bringing three spades to devastate her as much as Trafane.

The pair embraced, it being unclear who was comforting who, Trafane left with no more than a couple of blinds. Within a hand he was gone in third place.

The heads-up contest is best summed up by the comments in our previous post.

Coren and Mestre had tangled brilliantly at the start of the day (the bluff, re-bluff, re-re-bluff is worth a read) and now again at the end. Back then Coren had been in charge and it seemed she’d got the upper hand at the end also, taking the lead and looking to seal it when she called Mestre’s shove with fives with her own ace-jack.

It was to be Coren’s high point; the race won by Mestre and a short while later, when Mestre’s ace-five dominated Coren’s ace-three, it was all over.

Raul Mestre, a deserving world poker champion and first winner of The Table.