ISPT pens two poker partnerships
Dusk Till Dawn to run satellites and guarantee 1m first prize, while HendonMob will provide running list of entries.
The International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) has announced partnerships with Dusk Till Dawn and HendonMob as it prepares for its inaugural event at Wembley Stadium in May.
At a press conference held at the stadium today, DTD owner Rob Yong (second from left) revealed that the Nottingham-based poker club would guarantee a 1m first-place prize as well as holding live and online satellites at its newly-launched room on the iPoker network.
DTD’s live poker manager Simon Trumper (far right) will act as tournament director for the main event, for which multiple ‘Day 1s’ will be hosted by ISPT’s land-based and online partners including Lock Poker and Poker770.
ISPT CEO Prosper Masquelier (centre) also confirmed that side events would be held by partners including the APAT.
Yong said: “We first met Prosper at the time (fellow ISPT founder) Laurent Tapie looked likely to buy Full Tilt Poker, but the world has changed a lot since then.
“We will have to pull on all our partners to get behind the event, and hope to see a number of them hosting side events at Wembley,” he added.
Masquelier also announced a deal with player ranking site Hendon Mob, which will provide a list of entries complete with players’ historical results, and Masquelier described the relationship as “The start of something beautiful.”
He also confirmed that the tournament will take place on the pitch at Wembley “So we will have the atmosphere and energy of the stadium”.
Earlier this year ISPT announced Lock Poker as its exclusive partner for American players to qualify for its inaugural event.
The site, which acquired assets of the Cake Network and created the Revolution Gaming Network in May last year, joins Partouche, MyPok, NetBet and Poker770 as an online satellite partner.
Partouche and MyPok will cater to French players, NetBet to Italian players and iPoker skin Poker770 to players in Spain, Germany and the remainder of the European Union.
The Amateur Poker Association and Tour has also agreed a deal with the ISPT to offer satellites live and online for the event, which received clearance from Brent Council last August.
The tour created by Laurent Tapie and Prosper Masquelier, has also amended its structure so players will no longer be required to bring laptops or tablets to Wembley for the online stage, while the buy-ins for the online and live elements have been halved to 300 and 3,000 respectively.
Instead, six “Day 1s” will take place between February and May, with 10% of players progressing to the live tournament with the stacks earned on whichever Day 1 they choose to play. A limited number of players also have the opportunity to buy into the live tournament directly.
A number of poker players have signed up as ambassadors of the tour, including former Full Tilt Poker ‘red pros’ Michael Mizrachi and David Benyamine.
(Picture from left to right: David Benyamine, Rob Yong, Prosper Masquelier, Simon Trumper)