Premier League

by Phil

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A few days ago I got one of the coolest calls I have got in a LONG LONG while.  "How would you like to play in the Premier League?"  Was this a trick question?  Nope.  It was the real deal.  Unreal.  Wow.  Turns out that Doyle Brunson pulled out and I was the lucky replacement.

Truly an incredible opportunity.  And so truly stoked.

Here is who is playing.

Hellmuth, Me, Rousso, Negreanu, De Wolfe, JC Tran, Tony G, Timoshenko, Luke "Full Flush" Schwartz (Aka "Bubblegum Schwartz")*, Benyamine and two more players (one from an online qualifier on party poker, and one of the sponsored pros that party poker has).  12 people in all.

*Bubblegum Schwartz.  I like this nickname better and have decided to go with it in spite of being the only one at this point.  During the World Poker Open (The thing I won in London for 250k in October) he was chewing some gum.  I started calling him "Bubblegum" (with his permission) and though it never stuck, I found that I liked it to much to just let it go.  So if the news media and whoever could help me out with this it would be much appreciated.  I think it rolls off the tongue nicely as well.  

As a fun aside I went to the Hendon Mob and listed everyone’s lifetime tourney earn next to their name.  Here is that list.

Hellmuth               10,991,871
Laak                     1,807,382
Rousso                  2,413,166
Negreanu              12,432,367
Roland                   4,609,321
Jc                           7,956,635
Tony G                    4,047,471
Timoshenko             3,233,454
Luke full flush              249,134
Benyamine               3,471,679
One online qualifier                ?
One team party professional   ?

Negreanu and Hellmuth were 2nd and 4th all time on the Hendon Mob all time money list.  That is so sick.  Wow.  That is a lot of dough.  As far as this list goes if you add it all up it comes to 47,064,090.  Of the nine invited pros, their sum (not including mine) is 45,256,708 dollars.  Incredible.  I will be up against a minimum of 45 million dollars in tourney lifetime winnings.  Sick.

In the press release stuff I thought it would be funny to let Luke know that there would be free sandwiches.  In comedy, this is called a "call back".  A call back is where you refer back to something that may or may not have been funny in an attempt to now be funny.  In this "call back" moment I was alluding to Luke's snatching a sandwich in some casino in London, getting caught, and getting in trouble for it.  In reading the press stuff, I am not sure that it lived up to what I had hoped for in it being funny.  But well, whatever.

I flew up to Vegas (in LA now) a few days ago and did some preliminary interviews and stuff.  It was all good.  The oddball thing was that right as I walked into the casino the first guy I saw was Jesse May!  This threw me off a bit.  I am so used to seeing him only in London or Cardiff that it caught me off bit a bit.  I was able to catch a flight back that night which was nice.

Jesse May.  This guy is great.  I have read A LOT of poker books (nearly all of them.. more or less..) and out of all of them his is for sure EASILY in the top 3.  It was called Shut Up And Deal.  It is a great story about him being in AC playing limit poker during a snow storm.  It is riddled with good stuff and worth the time.  You may also know him from his commentary stuff he does regularly on the poker shows that they have in Europe.  He does a lot of them and his off hand comments at times are priceless.

Anyway,,, I diverge.  This is a post about the Premier League. 

Though the entry fee is 100,000 the payout structure is rather smooth.  The money is distributed in two parts.  The first is based on a points system where you collect points during your 4 prelim matches.  And the second is based on how you do at the final table (should you get enough points to play it.)  It is a smoother distribution than the typical tournament.  (In a typical event the top 10% are in the money and the rest, well the rest get nada.)

The other thing that makes this event different is this.  ADDED MONEY.  Yup!  They are in fact adding 300,000 dollars to the prize pool.  This is HUGE.  For every 100,000 dollar entry fee received, they are adding 25,000 dollars.  HUH??? CRAZY COOL is what I say!

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Paying the entry fee.  I had 20 Bellagio flags with me and it sure felt weird handing that over.  100k of real live money to play in this thing.  I remember when I was in college dreaming of the day when my net worth would be 10,000.  And here I was handing over 10 times that as an entry fee to a game I happened to love.  Time sure is a weird thing.

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I will be blogging about this hair raising thing from time to time, and if you are reading this thing... I think I will start to be a bit more regular.

Cheers!

Phil Laak
Degen for Life