World Team Poker and Fox Sports Net reached an agreement for broadcast of the new international poker competition between the world’s top professional players playing for their countries’ national pride.
World Team Poker is an international poker sports league with superstars of poker acting as team captains for their respective countries. Each team captain handpicks professional players who will represent their national poker team. They play in a series of poker competitions for the distinction of being crowned World Team Poker Champions.
World Team Poker’s Inaugural Event, which was held at the Golden Nugget on 5/19, will kick off the new television series. A teaser episode is scheduled to be broadcast on 7/14. Then, viewers will see the drama unfold over 13 one-hour episodes, broadcast nationally on Sunday nights, beginning September.
Each episode will feature Team Captains coaching players and making player substitutions. Television audiences will be able to watch a level of team strategy previously unseen in poker as the captains attempt to find perfect matchups and place experts in different games on the felt for their respective specialties. All team players remain eligible for play so long as the team has chips in play. At any given time, the team captain can substitute a player back into the game, sending another teammate to the bench or different table, however, the chips do not move from the table. Even if a team member gets knocked off a table, that player is not out of the game.
Each team is captained by superstars of poker from their respective countries, including Phil Hellmuth, (Team USA), co-captains Johnny Chan and David Chiu (Team China), Men “The Master” Nguyen (Team Vietnam), Eli Elezra (Team Israel), Ben Roberts (Team England), co-captains Jeff Lisandro and Tony G (Australia), Juliano Maesano (Team Brazil) and George Kapalas (Team Greece).
Each of five tables will play down until there are two players left at each table. Once the final two players from each table have been decided, those surviving teams will combine their stacks with their teammates’ chips.
