World Poker Tour Announces Series Of High Roller Events
At the beginning of June we brought you news on the upcoming World Poker Tour (WPT) schedule, a schedule that sees some of the worlds best poker players visit countries all over the globe. Today we can bring you news on another WPT event, the WPT Alpha8, an event that will see the elite players participate in a series of high roller events around the world.
The Alpha8 series will be as its name suggests a series of eight high roller events, all of which will have a minimum buy-in of at least $100,000. Adam Pliska is the President of the WPT and he issued a statement about the new addition to the tour. It reads, “Showcasing the world’s poker elite and featuring multimillion dollar prize pools, Alpha8 represents the highest televised treatment of super high-roller tournament poker to date. Playing out over a global stage, this series will give audiences insight into the intensity and skill demanded at the sport’s highest levels.”
The first event of the new tour will start at the end of August and will take place during the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open. The first event will be called “WPT Alpha8 Florida” and the other events are expected to be announced shortly and will take place in North America, Europe, South Africa and Asia.
Larry Mullin is the Chief Operating Officer at Seminole Gaming and he had this to say about the upcoming event. He said, “As a long time World Poker Tour partner, Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is excited to be hosting the first event in this exclusive, super high-roller series. Adding WPT Alpha8 Florida to the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open schedule raises the volume on this already highly anticipated series, including our $10 million guarantee Main Event.”
The $111,111 One Drop High Rollers No Limit Hold’em Event at the recent World Series of Poker attracted a field of 166 players who created a prize pool of $17,891,148, an event that was won by American Tony Gregg who took home the first prize of $4,830,619. If the WPT Alpha8 series attracts just a third of those 166 players it is sure to be a huge success, and if it does it could find itself on the schedule for many years to come.
