Most sporting institutions and gaming councils have professional leagues within which the elite of their particular industry play each other on a regular basis. However, despite having thousands of tournaments per year, and dozens of major festivals to take part in, there has been no professional poker league created. Until now.
It has come to light to those using the Betfair Poker Bonus that by August 2011 there will be a newly formed professional poker league that will be headed by Annie Duke, herself a professional poker player with more than $4.7m in live tournament winnings. Duke will become the commissioner of what is expected to be called the Federated Poker League, which will be owned by a newly-formed company called Federated Sports and Gaming, run by the former World Series of Poker Commissioner, Jeffrey Pollack.
The league will be invite-only in the first instance but will then become much like the PGA golf tour where players earn their “tour card” by order of merit. Players will be able to obtain a two, three or five year pass with around ten lifetime passes being issued to the game's true greats, the likes of Doyle Brunson have been mentioned in this category.
There will be 200 of these hand-picked players in total and they will play three tournaments at the Palms Casino Resort, Las Vegas between the months of August and December with a fourth being played in January that will be a $1,000,000 freeroll dubbed The Championship. All tournaments are going to be rake free and paid for through advertising and sponsorship so they could be onto a winner, especially as American television companies are fighting over the rights to broadcast the tournaments.
One stumbling block, and one that could create some major problems whether you use the Betfair Promotion code or not, is the fact the selection process will only cater for tournament players and there is currently no room for cash game players or for those who have made a name for themselves playing online poker, which seems a very strange move indeed.
