Global Poker Masters - Live team competition organized by the GPI

According to Alexander Dreyfus, the head of the Global Poker Index (GPI), it's time for a grandiose poker team competition to be organized and many of the leading poker professionals in the world have already joined him in his quest to bring his new event, the Global Poker Masters to success.

In the past few years there have been several efforts to make poker a team competition, but none of these have proved very successful, the most interesting event was the Caesars Cup which was held during the WSOP Europe and where different continents battled with each other.

Alex Dreyfus, head of the GPI wants to change the scene of poker team competitions for good and will launch the Global Poker Masters (GPM) in March.

The first event will be held in the Portomaso Casino in Malta and the best eight teams on the GPI will compete: USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Russia, France, Ukraine and Italy.

Dreyfus already managed to create a buzz amongst poker fans, mostly because of the star-studded lineups which you can see at the bottom of the article.

There have been a few difficulties however, Fabrice Soulier and Benjamin Pollak have confirmed that they will play the event but later withdrew because their sponsors, Everest Poker and Betclic didn't allow them to enter.

Dreyfus gave a short interview during EPT Deauville where he stated that Soulier and Pollak can't play because their sponsors only would've let them play if they wore patches with logos.

Dreyfus talked about the fact that they don't the event to be about poker promotion, they want to "stay clean" and let the players represent their countries, not their sponsors, much like in football, where there are no logos on the national jerseys.

Dreyfus and the GPI want to present poker as a sport because they feel this is the way that could make it popular in TV once again.

The Global Poker Masters consists of several rounds, in Round 1, players play 8-handed Sit n Gos, in Round 2 they play heads-up. The final round will be a 6-handed final table where the players who gathered the most points in the first two rounds can play for the prizes. Dreyfus has stated that they could still tweak the structure before the tournament.

For the first time in the history of poker, the live stream will be presented without any delay, the tournament will use a shot clock and there will be no Wi-Fi in the room so the delay is not necessary for security purposes.

Dreyfus also talked about the opportunities that the live stream presents, they want sportsbetting sites to offer live betting for the tournament.

The GPM will have no buy-in and there are going to be prizes courtesy of GPI and the sponsors of the event. The organizers want the tournament to be a sports event and have thus not declared how much the winning team will receive. Besides the winning the, the Most Valuable Player (MVP) will also receive a prize.

The GPM Malta will run between March 21 - 22, you can find further details on the GPM website.