Posts Tagged ‘World Team Poker’

China Takes First World Team Poker Tournament Win

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Last week the inaugural game of the World Team Poker Tournament took place at the Gold Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. The tournament, which had a $50,000 buy-in, lasted for eighteen and a half hours. Eight teams participated from eight different countries – China, Vietnam, Israel, England, Australia, Brazil, Greece and the United States – but at the end of the night it was China that came out on top.

Team China won a net total of $300,000 in the tournament. Brazil, the runners up, will take home $100,000. It was not a shocking win, as China has been one of the favorites in the tournament from the beginning. The Chinese poker team is led by co-captains David Chiu and Johnny Chang. Other team players include Derek Cheung, Winifred Yu, Rich Zhu, Maria Ho and Chiau Giang.

The team tournament style worked as follows. Each team player started out at a preliminary table. The top two players at each table advanced to the final table. Countries that had more than one qualifying player were awarded only one seat at the final table, with the advancing player taking the winning chips of all other players. The tournament was a mix of Limit Holdem, No Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha. Team captains were allowed to substitute players each time the game changed. The USA and England did not even make it to the final table.

The tournament ended after one of the longest and hardest heads-up matches to occur in recent history, China is the proud winner of the first World Team Poker Tournament.

World Team Poker’s USA Roster Announced

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

One of the poker world’s most exciting events, World Team Poker, is coming up and the roster for the USA team has been announced. For those of you that don’t know, World Team Poker is an international league for poker players. Each team is lead by a designated captain and the captain chooses four professional poker players from his or her country, plus an alternate, to join the team. Teams compete in regular matches throughout the season to see which country comes out on top.

What makes World Team Poker really exciting is that team captains serve as couches and are allowed to play themselves, substitute players and make calls just like in live sports. I’m really excited to see how the USA team will work together and look forward to watching the games when they are broadcast on television.

This year’s USA team captain is Doyle Brunson. Phil Hellmuth is going to be Brunson’s number two man, with Howard Lederer, Annie Duke, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, Mike Matusow, Jennifer Harmon and Erik Seidel also taking part.

The USA team will compete against seven other countries-Australia, China, England, Greece, Vietnam, Israel, and Brazil. Events include Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Hold’em, Stud, Omaha and others and the games will commence on May 19 at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. World Team Poker games will be televised as well as broadcast on the Internet with interactive chat.