World Team Poker is a poker sports league, and its Inaugural Event is an actual team sporting event, the first of its kind. The league features a unique concept of team poker with the thrill of international competition between top professional poker players from countries throughout the world battling it out for “Pride, Passion, and Country.” World Team Poker will continue to host team events throughout the year which will culminate in a World Team Poker Championship. Similar to the tradition of the Super Bowl, Olympic Games, or FIFA World Cup, the top world teams will compete for the ultimate title: World Team Poker Champion.

Each event will start off with a set number of teams. In the case of the Inaugural Event, there will be 5 tables with 8 players per table. Featuring 40 of the world’s top poker pros, the-filmed-for-television event will a mixed game tournament consisting of rounds of Limit Hold’Em, Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold’Em. Only one member from each of the 8 national teams may be seated at any given table at any given time. The one-day event is structured in a shootout (or knockout) format and each table will play down, without collapsing, until there are just two players left.

Team Captains can make substitutions throughout the event, allowing for a level of team strategy previously unseen in poker as the Captains attempt to find the perfect matchups and place experts in different games on the felt for their respective specialties. Even if a player gets knocked off a table, he/she is NOT out of the game! At any given time, at any given level the Team Captain can substitute the player back in to the game, sending another teammate to the bench. Of course there is a catch... although the chips at each table belong to the entire team, those chips must remain at the table they were issued. So, while the players can get moved around from seat to seat – the chips do not move! One minute a player could be sitting behind a deep-stack, the next minute he/she could be exchanged with another team mate to salvage a short-stack.

Once the final two players from each table have been decided, those surviving teams and their chips will meet up at the final table. While it would be nice to have a player from each country make it to the end, it is highly unlikely that the final table will be 8-handed. Again, the chips belong to the team – not the individual players, some teams may be completely eradicated while other teams may have multiple qualifiers. So while there will be two players remaining at each table, each surviving player must combine their chips with those earned by other qualifying team mates. Once each team has tallied their chips, the chips will be placed in front of a single seat for the final showdown. It will be up to the Team Captains to decide which ONE from their respective teams will sit at the final table, however they will be able to substitute that player for another team mate, including themselves, at any time. So, unless a team is completely eliminated, it ain’t over and nobody leaves... until there is a winner!

The event will be streamed live to the worldteampoker.com website via livestream.com for free viewing by World Team Poker forum members, and there will be grandstand seats available for the general public to come in and watch the action unfold live and in person. Once the final hand is dealt, the recorded video will be edited and aired as a television series later in the year. World Team Poker is currently in negotiations with several television networks in the U.S. and abroad. Channel stations and show times will be announced once they are finalized.

TEAM LINE-UPS:

USA: Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow

China: Johnny Chan, David Chiu, Maria Ho, Chau Giang, Winfred Zhu, Derek Chung, Rich Zhu

Vietnam: Men "The Master Nguyen" Scotty Nguyen, Kenny Tran, Tim Phan, John Phan, Karina Jett

Australia: Jeff Lisandro Tony Guoga, Mel Judah, David Saab, Gary Benson

England: Ben Roberts, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, Joe Beevers, Peter Costa, Surinder Sunar

Israel: Eli Elezra, Josh Arieh, Abe Mosieri, David Levi, Robert Mizrachi, Michael Mizrachi, Mose Elezar

Brazil: Juliano Maesano, Rodrigo Capriolo, Felipe Ramos, Christian Kruel, Leandro Pimentel

Greece: George Kapalas, George Theofanopoulos, Alex Dervos, Stavros Kalfas, Dimitris Chatziriotis, Dimitris Liritsis

The inaugral event will take place at the Golden Nugget on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 12 noon.  It is also available by live streaming broadcast on the website at http://worldteampoker.com/