Poker Island – Escape to Paradise with PokerRoom
Starting July 16, PokerRoom.com will host the ultimate poker “reality” competition, complete with plush accommodations, tropical beaches, and the chance to win a six-figure poker sponsorship.
The promotion, dubbed Poker Island, will pit online qualifiers against each in live poker competitions in order to determine who will receive a lucrative sponsorship from PokerRoom.com. The sponsorship will include buy-ins to some of the richest land-based poker tournaments around: the WSOP, WSOP Europe, WPT Championship, and WPT Five Diamond Classic.
Five contestants will reside at a luxury villa on the island of Ibiza at any given time. Each week, they will hit the felt to see who stays and who goes. Two contestants will be evicted each week, replaced by two more online qualifiers. The winner of the this “Eviction Tournament” will lock up a spot in the Poker Island final, which will determine the ultimate champion. Poker Island runs through October 30, so there will plenty of opportunities to get to the villa.
The qualification process is interesting. As with many online poker promotions, qualifiers are determined by a freeroll tournament, held each Sunday at 8:00pm CET. But it takes a little luck to gain an entry into that tournament. Each week, PokerRoom.com sets forth a specific condition that players must meet to win a seat in the tournament, a condition that simply requires playing cash games.
This week, that condition is “Flush on the Flop, Straight on the River.” In any Texas hold’em cash game for real money, if you flop a flush (using both hole cards) and your opponent rivers a straight, you earn the seat. That is, provided the hand went to showdown, you won it, and at least three players were dealt into the hand.
