PartyPoker.com today announced the return of the Premier League III, the innovative league format TV tournament which sees 12 of the world’s best poker players for a total prize pool of $1.25 million.
The buy-in for the event has been upped to $75,000, with $350,000 added by PartyPoker.com, and the first player confirmed for the Nov. 24 to 30 event is last year’s champion Andy Black.
Matchroom Sport devised the unique format which sees the 12 players play six times in the league before the top four progress to the final table and the four runners up playing heads up for the remaining two places.
Andy Black said of his defence of his title year’s event, ““There will be no more ‘Mr Nice Buddhist’ this year. The attitude 
and spirit I will be bringing to the tournament can be summed up by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Asked as Conan the Barbarian what was most important in life he said it was: ‘to crush your enemies and hear the lamentation of their women.”
Eddie Hearn, head of online gaming at Matchroom Sport said, “The Premier League is now established internationally as poker’s number one TV show. The worldwide ratings and distribution have exceeded all expectations and the demand is such that we have decided to hold another Premier League event this year. We are delighted to welcome last year’s champion Andy Black back to the League and we will now sit down and hand pick the remainder of the chosen 12. There isn’t a poker player on the planet that doesn’t want to be part of this event.”
Phil Hellmuth, who has appeared on both previous series said of the PartyPoker.com Premier League, “Premier League Poker featured a fantastic format filled with skill, twists and turns, great players and made for electric television.”
- Andy Black (Ireland) $316,000
- Roland De Wolfe (England) $160,000
- Tony G (Lithuania) $136,000
- Alexander Kravchenko (Russia) $92,000
- Marcel Luske (Holland) $72,000
- Annie Duke (America) $58,000
- Eddy Scharf (Germany) $38,000
- Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott (England) $38,000
- Vicky Coren (England) $34,000
- Juha Helppi (Finland) $22,000
- Ian Frazer (England) $18,000
- Phil Hellmuth (America) $16,000
