In recent years, the World Poker Tour’s tournaments not held in North America were not televised. This will change for next season’s tournaments, starting with the Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France in May, as Matchroom Sport will be producing European WPT events for worldwide television distribution. Matchroom will be looking to add to their success television poker events such as “The Big Game”, “Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge”, “Party Poker World Poker Open”, among other made-for-TV events.
The Season 9 schedule has not been released, but two tournaments in Europe have already been announced, the Spanish Championship in Barcelona May 13th and D’Amneville in France in November.
The mystery of who Isildur1 is may finally be revealed in a televised cash game in London next month. PokerNews,Tony G (who will stake Isildur1) and Matchroom Sport have each announced that the high-stakes online phenom will appear at the Les Ambassadeurs club in London for PartyPoker’s “Big Game IV”, a 48-hour cash game taped April 11-13th. Negotiations are still underway as to whether Isildur1 will wear a mask to continue hiding his identity or if he’ll choose to finally reveal himself to the public.
Names already announced for the cash game include Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Isaac Haxton, Luke “Full Flush” Schwartz, Neil Channing with several other players to be announced over the next few days. Previous “Big Game” broadcasts filmed by Matchroom Sport have been 25-50 NL holdem, with the possibility of the blinds increasing during the session. The final product will first air on Channel Five in the UK, and eventually appear on networks around the world.
Here’s a promo previewing last year’s “Big Game” broadcast, picture this action in a much nicer location:
In an interview Sunday on Mediocre Poker Radio from WJFK in Washington DC, AJ Benza said Kara Scott will be his replacement when taping resumes in November. Kara is best known in the US from her cashes in the past two World Series of Poker Main Events, gaining the affection of Norman Chad in the process. She was also the presenter of the European Poker Tour for the first five seasons, before moving over to Matchroom Sport to present in their made-for-TV tournaments in the UK. An article at Pokernewsdaily.com, which mentions the Benza interview, only confirms that Shana Hiatt will not take part in the show and that no contract has been signed in regards to AJ’s replacement.
