William Hill, one of Britain's top bookies, and Sky Sports have reached an agreement for the broadcast of the inaugural $800,000 William Hill Poker Grand Prix, starting on Tuesday, January 17th. The much praised poker tournament will air in eight weekly two-hour episodes plus one three-hour final episode. A second run of the series will follow later this year on Channel 425. There will also be a one-hour behind-the-scenes documentary narrated by Victoria Coren.
The Poker Grand Prix has received much praise from within the poker community because it aims to put the factor skill back in the game. Most poker tournaments that are currently shown on TV have a blind structure that is "made for speed" to cut back on production costs.
Not so the Poker Grand Prix. It's unique tournament structure was especially designed to put more emphasis on the factor skill in a poker tournament, and to limit the factor luck. This feat was accomplished by limiting the number of entrants into the tourney, and by giving them more time to make their decisions.
Only
56 players could enter into the tournament. 48 were poker professionals
from all around the world. Some notable names were: Barny Boatman, Tony
G, Ram Vaswani, ‘Bad Girl’ Xuyen Pham, Antonio
Esfandiari, Phil
Laak and the legendary Scotty Nguyen.
The remaining 8 players qualified online for no more than $12. The tournament is divided into 7 rounds. Each round features one table with 8 players. The winner of each table qualifies directly for the final. The remaining seat of the final table is claimed by the winner of the runners-up semi-final.
Barney Boatman commented: "...this structure really showcases what the game is about. [...] This is the future of televised poker – this is the high road that I hope they go up." Antonio Esfandiari added: "A top quality tournament – one of the best I’ve ever played in. This was simply magnificent.”