Thursday was an eventful day for poker, with the Global Poker League’s first draft and the 2nd annual American Poker Awards taking place at the same time and at the same place. The SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, California played host to both events and the day actually kicked off with the draft itself.
It was last year when Alex Dreyfus, CEO and owner of Mediarex Sports & Entertainment, parent company of the Global Poker Index and the Hendon Mob, announced his idea to “sportify poker” by introducing a unique poker league. Instead of players contending against each other in the way we have all been accustomed to watching them, they will now be united in teams to battle in a first-of-its-kind poker format.
As previously reported, a total of 12 teams from all around the world will play against each other in a cube stadium. The teams are managed by some of the world’s most popular poker professionals and yesterday managers finally had the chance to select the other players to join their teams.
On February 18, the Global Poker League drew the order in which the 12 managers would select the players to join their teams in each of the draft’s 3 rounds. And here it is:
Team
Manager
Rome Emperors
Max Pescatori
Montreal Nationals
Marc-Andre Ladouceur
New York Rounders
Bryn Kenney
San Francisco Rush
Faraz Jaka
Las Vegas Moneymakers
Chris Moneymaker
Sao Paulo Metropolitans
Andre Akkari
London Royals
Liv Boeree
Moscow Wolverines
Anatoly Filatov
LA Sunset
Maria Ho
Berlin Bears
Philipp Gruissem
Paris Aviators
Fabrice Soulier
Hong Kong Stars
Celina Lin
Here it is important to note that yesterday’s draft was done in a snake format. In other words, in Round 1, Pescatori was the first to pick a player and Lin was the last. However, she made the first pick in Round 2 and Pescatori made the last. The whole draft lasted for four hours as each of the team managers was given the chance to carefully pick their team members.
The Global Poker League’s first-ever draft was hosted by Kara Scott who was joined by poker stars Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth to comment on what was going on. The whole event was streamed live on the League’s Twitch channel.
And it was not a surprise that Pescatori selected fellow countryman Mustapha Kanit. Thus, the young Italian became the first-ever pick in the first-ever Global Poker League draft. The first surprise came a bit later when Jaka picked Phil Galfond to join San Francisco Rush. Galfond is best known as a high stakes online player and is less experienced in the live circuit. However, that does not mean that he has not been successful in live tournaments. In fact, the player has previously collected two WSOP gold bracelets. Vanessa Selbst was the first female poker player to be picked yesterday. She joined London Royals, managed by her friend Liv Boeree.
And here are all the players who were picked at the draft as well as a little more information about them:
Thursday was an eventful day for poker, with the Global Poker League’s first draft and the 2nd annual American Poker Awards taking place at the same time and at the same place. The SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, California played host to both events and the day actually kicked off with the draft itself.
