Exclusive ISPT News: "At Least 15,000 Players Must Enter."

In 2013, the International Stadiums Poker Tour should take place in London, but there are still a lot of open questions. PokerStrategy.com talked with ISPT marketing boss Georges Djen and ambassadors David Benyamine and Michael Mizrachi at the WPT Paris about poker's biggest planned event.

Wembley Stadium

UPDATE: The ISPT have made us aware that the tournament will still take place even if less than 15,000 players enter.

In the autumn of 2011 the International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) was announced; a huge event to take place at Wembley Stadium in London.

After this, there were teething troubles. First the tournament was announced for mid-2012, then September 2012. Now it is scheduled for May 31 - June 6, 2013.

Laurent Tapie, who organised the whole event, confirmed in 2011 that the prize pool of $30 million is guaranteed and reserved in a bank account.

Later, they spoke of a guaranteed prize pool of €20 million - some weeks ago they deleted the word "guaranteed" from their official homepage.

Because of incidents like this, the huge announced tournament is a mystery for many players, who are "rightly sceptical" according to ISPT marketing man Georges Djen.

"It's something new that didn't happen in the past - it is an ambitious project."

Rain won't stop play, 30+ side events

Georges Djen

According to Djen, the project has been in planning for over two years.

"At least 15,000 players must come, otherwise the tournament won't take place," he said. "But we could guarantee that this will the hugest tournament in the world in terms of the participants. A maximum of 30,000 players could play."

The plan is as follows: first, all players play online against each other in Wembley Stadium. The top of the field will then take to the pitch and play live poker down to a winner.

The typical weather in London will not affect the latter part of the tournament, with Djen stating that "there are many rooms and VIP boxes inside the stadium. We will also have poker tables set up in these areas."

All players who want to participate can choose between three different tickets. A regular ticket costs €600 and one seat with a rebuy or an add-on is €1,200. Those who want to play directly at the live final must pay €6,000. At the moment, 3,338 players are registered for the tournament according to the ISPT homepage.

Djen said that 7,000 seats were given to the Partouche Poker Group. These seats will be available via satellites both live and online. There will also be satellites at other poker rooms.

There will be approximately 30 side events, with the full schedule to be released in two or three weeks.

"It will be something spectacular."

To promote the event globally, the operation managers hired some famous names from the poker scene. Sam Trickett, Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi, Liz Lieu, Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine can all count themselves as ISPT ambassadors.

"We chose David Benyamine because he is, besides Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, one of the most popular poker players in France", said Djen.

Djen says that tour officials are searching for more ambassadors - for example for Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and Germany. They will also be running multiple advertisements in poker magazines.

"It will be something spectacular," said Mizrachi. 'The Grinder' calculates that with 25,000 players, the winner will receive almost €5 million.

A question of timing was brought up, given that the World Series of Poker typically begins in May or June, but we were told that "currently the schedule of the 2013 WSOP hasn't been released - maybe they won't start until June."

ISPT ambassadors: David Benyamine, Sam Trickett, Michael Mizrachi and Liz Lieu

Optimism, but still doubts

For Djen, transparency is pretty important. He did not try to ignore negative comments nor scepticism throughout our meeting at the WPT Grand Prix de Paris, being reasonable and open to suggestions.

Poker pro and PokerStrategist Dominik ace0ntheriver Nitsche provided some nice closing thoughts for us: "I wish the operation managers good luck, because it could be a nice event especially for recreational players. I hope that they organise everything - it would be good for poker!"

by tobiasfrey