One of the most highly anticipated new poker tours of the past year, the World Poker Tour’s Alpha8 series, will debut this Sunday at 9PM (Eastern Time) on Fox Sports 1, bringing new poker programming to a ravenous audience.
The WPT Alpha8 was created last year as a series of high dollar buy in tournaments (normally at or more than $100,000) that was expected to draw the crème of the poker world (or at least the ones with the deepest pockets). Traveling to several exotic locales, WPT Alpha8 made their first stop in Florida in August, which will be featured in the inaugural broadcast. Since that time, the Alpha8 cameras have traveled to London, St. Kitts and Johannesburg, with potentially a couple more stops on the agenda before the start of the World Series of Poker this summer.
Fox Sports 1 took the bold approach to sign on as the broadcast home of the WPT Alpha8 for three years. Also the home for the WPT circuit, Fox Sports 1 is currently broadcasting the Season XII schedule of WPT events, so it seemed natural that they would also pick up Alpha8 for poker’s faithful.
“WPT Alpha8 offers viewers an unprecedented look into how poker is played at its very highest levels,” said WPT President Adam Pliska. “We took a bold, fresh approach by creating a show with a hip and modern feel befitting the atmosphere expected by players who can afford to play at the game’s very highest stakes. Combined with great behind-the-scenes lifestyle footage and expert commentary, these ultra-high roller events showcase poker as it’s never been seen before.”
The WPT has brought in excellent talent to provide the coverage for WPT Alpha8. Doing double duty alongside her responsibilities as host of the regular WPT events, announcer Lynn Gilmartin will hold down the anchor’s chair for the broadcasts. When it comes to the actual action on the felt, the WPT has enlisted longtime poker commentator Ali Nejad and poker professional Olivier Busquet, who has been commended for his past commentary on the WSOP Championship Event broadcasts.
The four events that have already run on WPT Alpha8 have had varying degrees of success. Eighteen players made the trip to Florida in August for the inaugural tournament and would put up 21 buy-ins (the WPT Alpha8 tournaments offer the re-entry option) to build a $2 million prize pool. Wading through a six-handed final table that included Joseph Cheong, Isaac Haxton and J. C. Tran, Steven Silverman would emerge as the first champion on the circuit.
October brought the Alpha8 cameras to the United Kingdom, where the field was smaller (11 players and 12 buy-ins) but, due to the £100,000 buy in, the final prizes were larger. Igor Kurganov, Tobias Reinkenmeier and Scott Seiver all took home six figure paydays, but it was Philipp Gruissem who took down over $1.3 million for winning the championship.
As winter descended on the United States and Europe, the Alpha8 chose the sunny climes of St. Kitts in November for their third tournament. Sixteen players were on the scene for that event, which ended with Seiver, Mike McDonald and Tom MacDonald earning some hefty cash. It was Gruissem, however, who would win his second Alpha8 title and another million dollar payday ($1,066,400, to be exact) that would catapult him into several of the major Player of the Year races in 2013.
The Alpha8 team took a break until last month when it went to Johannesburg, South Africa, for its fourth tournament. Overall the turnout was a bit disappointing, only bringing out nine players that ponied up ten buy-ins. Daniel Cates would walk off with the championship, banking $500,000 for the victory in what has been the smallest payout on the Alpha8 circuit to date.
With its star-studded fields and the lure of big money to entice viewers, the WPT Alpha8 has the potential to be an outstanding series. Beginning on Sunday, we’ll see just how good it will be with the broadcasts on Fox Sports 1.