Dream Team Poker Draws Huge Response

The Dream Team Poker tournament is scheduled to start from the 27th of March. The number of entries received so far have exceeded all expectations. This is surprising because for one the tournament is not televised and also the event has a low buy in of only $500 + $50.

What atrracts the poker professionals to this tournament is the unique structure of the event and the fact that it is team based. Players compete as individuals but get scored as a team. In the end there are both individual and team prizes. Dream Team Poker have applied for a patent for this system. The system provides incentives for busted out players to stay on till the end of the tournament and this generates greater side revenues on hotel reservations and meals. Daniel Delshad, the CEO of Dream Team Gaming had this to say, “The overwhelming interest from top poker pros to participate in a non-televised, five-hundred dollar game proves that the Dream Team Poker concept provides a needed, new experience to players.”

It is expected that the team count will cross 100 and the individual player count will cross 300. The favorite team is “Team Favorites”. Only Phil Hellmuth could give his team that name, the man recently in a weird hand malfunction at the USA online poker site, Ultimatebet. The hand was more than just a poker bad beat, it rewarded the winning losing player, Helmuth, the pot.

The others in the team are Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss. The dark horse is an all women’s team named “Team Yo Mama” consisting of Tiffany Michele, Maria Ho and Lacey Jones. There is also a veterans team of T.J. Cloutier, Tom McEvoy and Kathy Liebert called Pro Team 1. Other poker pros who will be participating are Jamie Gold, Jerry Yang, Justin Bonomo, Dennis Phillips, Hoyt Corkins, Todd Brunson, Paul Wasicka, Joe Sebok, Liz Liu and Erica Schoenberg. Mekhi Phifer the actor Chris Mills the NBA star will be having their own team, The Sole Survivors.

Dream Team Poker was founded in 2007 by Dream Team Gaming, a privately held company headquartered in Beverly Hills. It has licensed its unique tournament structure to many of the largest and most popular casinos in the United States. The inaugural tornament took place in November 2008 at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The Bluff Magazine Team consisting of Eric Morris, Justin Bonomo and Matthew Parvis won. The Super Tilt team was second. Jason Lilly of Team Flop won the first prize. The placements of some prominent pros were as follows. Jamie Gold was 12th, Erica Schoenberg was 30th and Maria Ho was 75th. The competition is stiffer this time.The tournament is being held at Caesar’s Palace this time in the Poker Room. This room is steeped in history as Jim Pedulla the Director of the Poker Room said, “… we are proud to host this event in the World Series of Poker tournament room, which is also the site of NBC Heads Up Poker …”