Nowadays it seems like there are poker tournaments everywhere you look. Be it Marrakech, Macau or Montana, there appears to be a poker event for nearly every budget and type of player.

Some of these tournaments do quite well and some - as you may imagine - not so much. Certain events, particularly those associated with a major tour or located in a prestigious casino, are virtually guaranteed to draw a large and distinguished poker crowd. A classic case would be the World Poker Tour’s Festa al Lago Championship, which starts this week (October 21st- 26th) at the beautiful Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This year, the six day, $15,000 + $400 buy-in Festa al Lago starts players off with 60,000 in tournament chips and begins with blinds at 50/100. Each day of play is expected to last for around five 90-minute levels, with only one Day 1 scheduled - despite organizers once again expecting large crowds.

Last year’s Festa al Lago main event attracted 368 players, creating a total prize pool worth $5,354,400 and a first prize worth $1,411,015.

That impressive prize was taken down by Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who defeated a tough final table that held, among others, Nam Le, Adam Levy and Nenad Medic (just a day before, PokerRoad’s own Joe Sebok busted in 9th place – thanks to ElkY)

Other past winners of the Bellagio’s Festival of the Lake main event include Carlos Mortensen, Andreas Walnum and Minh Ly.

This year the Festa al Lago’s preliminary events - which have taken place over the last few weeks - have garnered a surprising amount of media attention with big name pros like Christian Harder, Dan Shak, Ted Lawson and Howard “The Professor” Lederer each claiming top first place prizes.

This interesting trend may just foreshadow another well-known tournament pro taking down this year’s main event and PokerRoad’s Gavin Smith and Joe Sebok will be there, not only to take their shots at being that “well known pro,” but also to cover the event for PokerRoad Radio, once again bringing poker fans the kind of insider only access that no other poker show could ever hope to provide.

Stick with PokerRoad.com at this year’s WPT Festa al Lago, not only for PokerRoad Radio, but also for videos from Amanda Leatherman, blogs from the PokerRoad family, and countless tweets from the pros, compiled 24-hours a day in the PokerRoad Nation.