LAS VEGAS -- The professional poker league hoping to become the world's PGA for card players has determined criteria for its invitations and picked more than 200 people to compete in its first tournaments.
Annie Duke, league commissioner of Federated Sports and Gaming, told The Associated Press that the players were picked based on their results in live high-stakes poker tournaments, including cashes, major wins and money won in the past three years.
Duke, known for being a top tournament player herself, said the league is looking to reward players who have won consistently and shown recent success.
"This was the big wrestle -- the decision that we came up with is that relevance in the tournament world today is the more important piece," she said. "Nobody should be able to get into the league if they haven't been performing in the last three years."
The league is an attempt to pit players only against top competition, unlike typical high-stakes poker tournaments in which anyone who can muster thousands of dollars for a buy-in can compete.
The first players invited, a list of 218 players, qualified for five-year, three-year and two-year tournament cards. The length of each card signifies how long each player can continue to be in the league without having his or her credentials reviewed.
The top players invited include poker's biggest names, including Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel and Phil Hellmuth, while others making the cut include names known only to hard-core poker followers.
Several big names, including previous World Series of Poker main event winners Jamie Gold and Jonathan Duhamel, didn't make the cut, because the criteria caps each player's top tournament win at as much as $2 million and requires at least six cashes for at least $300,000 since 2008, Duke said.
That eliminates players who score big in one tournament and are never heard from again.
Jeffrey Pollack, chairman of Federated, said the league planned to go on as planned despite federal indictments targeting 11 executives at three top poker companies that sponsor many of the game's top players.
The indictments handed down April 15 led offshore companies PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker to shut down their U.S. offerings, and left fans and industry insiders questioning whether poker's top televised events would be affected.
Pollack said he and other league officials empathize with players and others in the multibillion-dollar industry that have seen their livelihoods affected indirectly by the indictments.
"We're very mindful of that -- a lot of those people are obviously friends, not just colleagues," Pollack said. "But beyond that, Black Friday hasn't impacted our business model and hasn't impacted our launch plan."
Federated's league launches in August, with plans for five sets of tournaments, including a $1 million freeroll offered only to the league's top 27 finishers in February in Las Vegas.
Duke said invitations to the league will be sent to players on Tuesday.
The most important part of making the league roster work was making it objective, Pollack said. The results have yielded highly skilled, interesting players, he said.
"There's a lot of young talent that's qualified to the league, and we look forward to putting a brighter spotlight on the new talent in professional poker," Pollack said.
Mike Canu said:
Duke, known for being a top tournament player herself, said the league is looking to reward players who have won consistently and shown recent success.
the criteria caps each player's top tournament win at as much as $2 million and requires at least six cashes for at least $300,000 since 2008, Duke said.
Lol @ Duke being a "top tournament player". Will she be playing in these events or only acting as commissioner? Because she barely qualifies. Since 2008 she has 8 cashes for a total of around 737K. But one of those was a "media" event and another was the NBC Heads-up which accounts for 500K of her winnings.
Should invite-only events even count, or should only open events be considered? What about "ladies" events and "seniors" restricted ones?
That would be a very interesting league to watch if the games are televised. I assume the reason for the tight qualifications is that the old timers are tired of new-comers from the internet, as they don't play as expected and often beat the pros?
My two cents about Annie - can't stand the biotch.
I met Annie at the Tryst nightclub when I was attending the 40th b-day party of Eric Morris (Bluff Magazine co-founder and President).
Was tough to really do much talking because it's a night-club and everything is so damned loud. But she didn't seem all that friendly, but then again she doesn't know me from anyone.
There was a Professional Poker League (PPL?) I think awhile back. It was essentially a very fast-structured invite-only event similar to what Duke is trying to do, but I don't recall it having much success.
Her idea has some potential. I think people grow weary of seeing all these young internet phenoms making the final table of a WPT which is full of uninteresting, socially-awkward math geeks who won't appeal to a mass audience and thus can't sustain a brands image in a positive way.
If she can make the televised games interesting to watch (i.e. by including enough colorful personalities) and incorporate intelligent and interesting commentary throughout the broadcast, the possibility of appealing to the hardcore fans and the general audience is there.
The most entertaining poker I ever was was celebrity poker, with Phil Gordon running a commentary on the plays, possible strategies being played and obvious mistakes being made. Great for somebody with my limited prowess at the tables. Also, some of the celebrities playing added a ton of entertainment value.
The value with watching pro poker players playing is more for education than entertainment, although for we poker enthusiasts what is educational is also very entertaining.
Janet Shold said:
The most entertaining poker I ever was was celebrity poker, with Phil Gordon running a commentary on the plays, possible strategies being played and obvious mistakes being made. Great for somebody with my limited prowess at the tables. Also, some of the celebrities playing added a ton of entertainment value.
The value with watching pro poker players playing is more for education than entertainment, although for we poker enthusiasts what is educational is also very entertaining.
I miss that show Janet! I LOVE Phil Gordon, he's my favorite poker player. I've seen Phil host a few other shows and he's very entaining to watch doing the commentating as well as hearing. His voice is soothing and relaxing to me. That show was awesome & I loved the first season of it with that guy they got to be the comedian then they changed it to Dave Foley which of course did badly because Dave knew nothing about poker. And then Phil Hellmuth which later took the show down, gee I wonder why. I'm not in love with Phil Gordon, I just think he's a good poker player. For a novice player such as myself, I've read his books (still need to read his latest one that came out a few yrs ago) and I understand plus enjoy poker a lot more than I did before.
Kashuskay - said:
What year was this AJ? Kash
the party at Tryst was 2009, the PPT I think ran from 2004-2007, give or take
Anthony Martino said:
Kashuskay - said:
What year was this AJ? Kash
the party at Tryst was 2009, the PPT I think ran from 2004-2007, give or take
Going to places without me AYE!?