GPL India season 1 to be held from May 2018 onwards, PokerStars to be online partner

Eight months after a grand announcement to launch an Indian poker league, Mediarex Sports & Entertainment’s Global Poker League (GPL) has finally announced the tentative schedule of GPL India season 1’s online qualifiers.

According to the company’s press release, GPL India season 1 online qualifiers will be held from May-August 2018 on their online partner Sachiko Gaming’s PokerStars India website.

The selected players will play in GPL India’s six city-based teams will compete over a four week period, with the top four scoring teams moving on to the GPL India finals to play for the title and winning five Platinum Passes – each valued at roughly Rs. 20 lakhs – to the PokerStars Championship in the Bahamas in January 2019, which has a prize pool of  around Rs. 65 crores.

Each of the six GPL teams will consist of 5 players (of which 2 will be selected through online qualifiers and the remaining 3 will be chosen by the team management) and will be led by a team manager. The six city based teams announced by GPL are Chennai Sharks (Manager- Vikram Kumar); Delhi Diehards (Manager- Muskan Sethi); Ahmedabad Alphas (Manager- Abhishek Rathod); Mumbai Jetsetters (Manager- Kavin Shah); Kolkata Creators (Manager- Aditya Agarwal) and Bengaluru Hackers (Manager- Vidwath Shetty).

GPL’s four week season will see the teams competing against one another in 6-Max and Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em Poker variants online and live in GPL’s India Studio to decide weekly winners. The finals will be held in November 2018 in a two-day event and will be streamed online.

Commenting on the announcement of GPL India launch, Malta-based GPL CEO Alexandre ‘Alex’ Dreyfus said, “We are excited to have partnered with the largest poker brand in the world to bring our unique and leading league format in India. We hope to offer a unique experience to the poker communities and help building creative content promoting this skill game and sport.

With our motto ‘Compete Globally, Play Locally’, GPL India and the six cities we selected for this first season will definitely spice up the ecosystem. We took our time to understand the competitive landscape. This is not a sprint, but a marathon, and working with PokerStars in India guarantees us a long term vision.”