Antonio Esfandiari, aka "The Magician" headlines a world class line-up in the inaugural William Hill Grand Prix, as the American poker Ace looks set to weave his spell over Europe’s best players in the £450,000 ($800,000) tournament.
Esfandiari rates amongst the top half a dozen in the World and feels the need to conquer Europe to really earn a place amongst the poker gods, taking him on are great Dane Gus Hanson. Whilst the ‘Hendon Mob’ are represented by Ram Vaswani, Joe Beevers and Barny and Ross Boatman.
Breaking new ground with a live televised draw, the William Hill Poker Grand Prix brings £114,000 ($200,000) of the sponsor’s money to the prize pool made up of the players entry stakes, and not surprisingly many of the games top players have been drawn to what is possibly the best TV poker event of the year.
William Hill Poker Manager Phil Quayle said: "The quality of player that we have assembled is fantastic and poker fans around the world are in for a treat. This is a new dawn for TV poker as we watch top class players playing for a share of the £450,000 ($800,000) prize pool, with a quarter of this added by William Hill Poker."
The event will be filmed over a ten day period from October the 17th and will hit UK TV screens in early December.