I'm Officially a Member of the PPL! - Daniel Negreanus Blog

Daniel Negreanu's Blog
September 26, 2006
The ABC Pro-Am

Daniel Negreanu's Poker Blog

I'm officially a member of the PPL!

UltimatePokerForum.com
The Ultimate Poker Site

September 27, 2006

Ok, this is what all of you guys have been waiting for, seriously. You've heard
over the last little while that there were rumblings of a new poker league
that would really bring poker to a new place.

Well, that time is now. The PPL draft is set for October 7th at the Venetian.
There is so much to tell you all that I can't even think of where to start, but
here goes:

The PPL stands for Professional Poker League and will feature 64 of the top
poker players in the world playing off against each other each week on
television.

The events will be held at the Venetian where a theater has been built
specifically for PPL events.

The poker? It's going to be really good. Some of you are probably as sick of
watching all-in fests as I am. Rest assured, the PPL will make for really
interesting television with a format that allows for tons of post flop play.

As I mentioned earlier, there will be 64 players playing on 8 different teams
(8 players per team). On October 7th you'll all know what the teams look like.
Each team has two co-captains and it's those captains responsibility to fill out
their teams at the draft.

After tons and tons of work on this project, all of the pieces have come
together and the show is a go! The casino deal is in place and the theater is
being built as we speak. I recently had a chance to check out the theater and
get a feel for what it's all going to look like. Awesome, just awesome. This
won't just be your typical poker show. There are lots of little surprises
surrounding the live event, but I can't spill the beans on that just yet.

So with the casino deal in place, the next step would be getting a network
deal. Done. Next, you convince the players that this thing is going to be huge
and get them signed on. Done.

The captains have already been signed and the league format has already
been decided. Picking 64 players is an extremely difficult task to say the
least, but a lot of thought was put into the selection of each player and I
think the final result was a good one.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you who's in or who's out. Also, I can't share the
league format with you all just yet. After the draft on October 7th the league
details will be available to all of you. I'll obviously keep you all up to date as
soon as I get the ok from the league.

I just can't wait until the draft, it's so exciting! The Venetian has truly bent
over backwards to help make this happen and have treated the players like
rock stars.

The people working on getting the contracts signed, getting a network deal,
signing the players, etc. have also spent all of their time on this project and
have done an amazing job pulling it all together.

As a player I thank them for their efforts and look forward to being a big part
of the PPL. This league is like a dream come true for a kid who used to
organize fake leagues for fun as a six year old. Seriously, playing poker just
got a lot more fun for all of us.

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