Global Poker League teams announced

The managers of the various regional teams are Philipp Gruissem, Celina Lin, Maria Ho, Chris Moneymaker, Liv Boeree, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Anatoly Filatov, Bryn Kenney, Fabrice Soulier, Max Pescatori, Faraz Jaka and Andre Akkari.

The Global Poker League (GPL) is an initiative by the Global Poker Index (GPI) which hopes to present poker to the masses from a unique angle. On January 13, the GPI announced the 12 teams (franchises) that will take part in the competition, as well as the team leaders.

The 12 franchises:

Berlin Bears: Philipp Gruissem, Team Manager
Hong Kong Dragons: Celina Lin, Team Manager
Los Angeles Sunset: Maria Ho, Team Manager
Las Vegas Moneymakers: Chris Moneymaker, Team Manager
London Royals: Liv Boeree, Team Manager
Montreal Nationals: Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Team Manager
Moscow Wolverines: Anatoly Filatov, Team Manager
New York Rounders: Bryn Kenney, Team Manager
Paris Aviators: Fabrice Soulier, Team Manager
Rome Emperors: Max Pescatori, Team Manager
San Francisco Rush: Faraz Jaka, Team Manager
Sao Paulo Metropolitans: Andre Akkari, Team Manager

There will be five players in every team, three of these will be drafted on the GPL Draft Day (any player in the GPI Top 1000 is eligible) and two will be selected randomly.

Team managers will not necessarily be players of the team, they can decide if they want to draft themselves. The managers and drafted players will commit to both the 2016 and 2017 Global Poker League season by joining.

The GPL Draft Day will take place on February 25 during the American Poker Awards in Los Angeles.

The event will be streamed on Twitch, check out that GPI owner Alex Dreyfus had to say about the news:

''The announcement of the teams and managers is a very important step in our quest. With the team managers, we already have the support of extremely talented players and they will be joined by even more world-class players during the draft. We are looking forward to the upcoming months and we hope that GPL will win over poker fans from all over the globe.''