Poker News

Phil Shaw

A new event, the World Poker Masters 2005, will be staged at the Casino Castell Peralada in Northern Spain later this year, with a few novel twists, leading the organizers to bill it “the first poker TV show for the players themselves”. For one it will be limited by invitation to the top fifty players inthe world (like golf masters tournaments) as ranked by aggregate tournament wins and earnings as of January 1st 2005.

The second is a three strikes heat structure that gives players three chances to make the semi final. The six day event, which will run from the 1st to the 6th November, is made up of fifteen heats, two semi finals and the grand final. The first five heats are each of ten players. Five go straight through to the semis, leaving forty five players who battle it out over the next five heats of nine. Another five then join the semi finalists, leaving forty players who sit down for the third time, at tables of eight each.

These five winners make fifteen semi finalists, but there will be a sixteenth player - the one who has the highest single declared hand of the tournament. The semi finals then play down to eight, who take their stacks into the grand final.

Discovery Real Time will broadcast the entire competition in a series of eighteen programmes of ninety minutes each, making for an unprecedented twenty seven hours of television poker. Said WPM series director Andy Picheta: “The level of coverage and the three tries structure give us a wonderful opportunity to present the players to the audience in ways not possible at the big open events. We have the time to really get to know them, to talk with them about their game, and show it all in an unhurried, in depth way.”

Television mogul Chris Hunt, who is the founder of The World Poker Masters, added that with three heats, two semis and a final, each player could find themselves in up to five programmes, giving them and their sponsors an exposure no other TV poker tournament can offer. “We deliberately modeled ourselves on the Golf Masters Tournament in Augusta, where the world’s top professionals battle it out to crown the best of the best. All other TV shows focus on the final six, when in reality it’s been a long haul to get to that point. With a smaller number of players, we can show that journey.”

Logos will be allowed, and there will be other attractions too: a Ferrari automobile will be given to any player who makes a ‘royal flush’! Tournament Director is the best in Europe, Thomas Kremser, and those expected to enter include: Chip Reese, T J Cloutier, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen, John Juanda, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Hasan Habib, Antonio Esfandiari, Paul Darden, Humberto Brenes, Martin de Knijff, Phil Hellmuth jr, Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Mel Judah, Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, Ram Vaswani, Surinder Sunar, Kiril Gerasimov, Harry Demetriou and David Benyamine.

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