Poker News 
/ Short-Stacked Shamus / 06 May 2011 / Leave a Comment 
This week the Federated Sports + Gaming league made a couple of announcements regarding the launch of its professional poker league, the first event for which is scheduled to take place at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas in early August. On Tuesday, the FS+G shared both qualifying criteria for membership in the league as well as a list of the 218 players who have made the initial cut. Those falling short have until August 1st to earn enough tourney scores to qualify for the 2011-2012 season.
The announcement of the new "pro-centric" poker league back in January evoked a mixed response. While the news certainly drew a fair amount of interest from both players and fans, some expressed skepticism about the yet-to-be-determined criteria for membership and overall prospects for the league's success.
The involvement of former WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack as a co-founder and Chairman of FS+G was enough to intrigue many. That Annie Duke would be serving as League Commissioner also garnered notice. Still, there were those who expressed reservations. The online crowd balked at the league's intention only to regard live tournament successes when determining its membership. Others wondered whether those invited would be encouraged to play at all, given the many other competing tournament series, many of which wouldn't feature such difficult fields.
At the time, Annie Duke described the league as providing something currently lacking on the tourney circuit, namely, a venue for top players to compete directly against one another minus the presence of amateurs. "This is the one piece that's kind of missing from the poker landscape right now," said Duke, describing the league as providing a unique opportunity "for the best players in the world to compete against the best players in the world."
That "poker landscape" suddenly changed in a major way on April 15 following the U.S. Department of Justice's indictment/civil complaint against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and UltimateBet. One consequence of the DOJ's action was the immediate cancellation of Full Tilt's Onyx Cup series which some thought might draw both players and fans away from the FS+G. The discontinuing of several site-sponsored poker shows in the U.S. (e.g., the NAPT on ESPN, "PokerStars Big Game" and "Million Dollar Challenge" on Fox) has perhaps cleared some space for the FS+G to gain further attention as well.
Here's an overview of the league's schedule and format, the criteria for membership, the first group of invited players, and some of the response from this week:
Schedule and Format
The FS+G's first season will consist of four "regular season" events (in August, September, December, and January-February), followed by a championship in February 2012. Each of these first four events will include special Pro-Am and charity tournaments in addition to the $20,000 buy-in, rake-free League Main Event. Notably, each of the Main Events will feature a prize pool overlay of $400,000 -- that is, $400K will be added the players' entry fees to create the total prize pool to be divided among the Main Events' top finishers.
Qualified players are invited to play each of the four Main Events. The nine players making the final table of the $1,500 buy-in Pro-Am events will win "temporary league cards" for the Main Event as well. Top performers in the four Main Events will win seats for the championship, scheduled to take place February 13-14, 2012 (immediately following the fourth event). There is no entry fee for the championship, the prize pool for which will be $1,000,000.
Criteria for Membership
There are four different types of membership in the FS+G's professional poker league: a 5-year membership, a 3-year membership, and two categories of 2-year memberships. The criteria for each are based on players' overall tournament performance, with extra weight given to wins in major events and recent cashes (i.e., since 2008). Also, the criteria doesn't overvalue huge cashes (like the WSOP Main Event), variously "capping" their worth (see below).
Not all tourneys count as "qualifying tournaments" when calculating totals. Qualifying tournaments require at least a $1,500 buy-in and need to be "open" events with at least 21 entrants. "Major events" include WSOP bracelet events, WPT events, and other major tour events. See the FS+G site for a complete explanation of the criteria.
5-year cards go to players with (1) at least $4 million in "adjusted" lifetime earnings (i.e., earnings in qualifying tourneys), with no single cash counting for more than $2 million of that total; (2) at least three "major" titles; and (3) at least nine cashes for $600,000 or more in qualifying tourneys since 1/1/08.
3-year cards go to players with (1) at least $2.5 million in earnings from qualifying tourneys, with no cash counting for more than $1.5 million; (2) at least one major title; and (3) at least nine cashes for $500,000 or more in qualifying tourneys since 1/1/08.
The first category of 2-year cards (Category A) go to players with (1) at least $2 million in earnings from qualifying tourneys, with no cash counting for more than $1 million; (2) at least one major title; and (3) at least six cashes for $300,000 or more in qualifying tourneys since 1/1/08.
Finally, the second category of 2-year cards (Category B) go to those with (1) at least $1.25 million won in qualifying tourneys, with no single cash counting for more than $750K; and (2) at least nine cashes for $600,000 or more in qualifying tourneys since 1/1/08.
The Players
So, who made the cut? Again, you can head over to the Federated Sports and Gaming website for a full list of all 218 players who have been invited. Here are a few highlights...
A total of 27 players had the qualifications to be awarded 5-year cards. The usual suspects are all here, including Johnny Chan, Allen Cunningham, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, and Erik Seidel. Vanessa Selbst landed a 5-year card, largely thanks to her killer 2010, as did 2009 WSOP POY Jeff Lisandro.
There were 55 players earning 3-year cards, among them David Benyamine, Antonio Esfandiari, Bertrand Grospellier, Tony G, Eugene Katchalov, Kathy Liebert, Gavin Smith, Yevgeniv Timoshenko, and David Williams. Annette Obrestad added enough scores to her 2007 WSOPE Main Event win to earn a 3-year card. And 2008 WSOP Main Event champ Peter Eastgate got one, too, despite having taken much of the last year off.
Among those receiving 2-year cards, 37 players got them via the Category A criteria, while 99 got in for meeting the terms of Category B. Here one finds a number of familiar names, including Patrik Antonius, Doyle Brunson, Ted Forrest, Gus Hansen, Jennifer Harman, and Greg Raymer (in Category A), and Andy Bloch, Tom Dwan, Faraz Jaka, Sorel Mizzi, Vanessa Rousso, and Sam Trickett (in Category B). Incidentally, Annie Duke also qualified for a 2-year card (Category A), but her duties as League Commissioner will prevent her from participating.
Response
Whereas reaction to the league's initial announcement back in January was mixed, response this week to both the criteria and the list of invited players has been largely favorable.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, reaction from chosen players has been mostly positive. Michele Lewis spoke with a few such players this week, each of whom expressed a feeling of being honored and/or excited about earning spots. For example, Neil Channing, who earned a 2-year (Category B) card, told Lewis that "despite being a massive cynic" about the league, he "was actually pretty excited to have made the cut." Shannon Shorr, who landed a 3-year card, noted similar excitement, adding that he would "make it a priority to play each and every event."
Still, some have reservations. Speaking to Gary Wise of the ESPN Poker Club, Daniel Negreanu noted that he had yet to decide whether he'd be using his 5-year card to play in the league's events. "There's a lot of information that we need to hear before making any commitments," Kid Poker told Wise, listing the league's television deal among the items he'd like to know more about before getting on board.
Meanwhile, fans and others with an interest in the new league mostly appear to have been excited by this week's news from the FS+G. While such excitement may be partially explained by a desire for good news after a couple of weeks' worth of post-Black Friday fallout, many seem to be appreciating the thoughtfulness of the criteria as well as the (potential) fields they've produced.
It will be interesting to see how much attention the FS+G poker league gets over the summer, including at the WSOP where some players who just missed the cut will be striving to earn their way in before that August 1 deadline.
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