PKR Grand Slam to be First PKR Televised Tourney

3-D virtual poker room PKR has announced its first televised poker tournament – the PKR Grand Slam. The inaugural running of the PKR Grand Slam will be held at 3 Mills Studio in London, England from October 8 – 10, 2009.

Inspired in part by the success of shows like the NBC Heads-Up Championship, the PKR Grand Slam is an invitational event (meaning “invite only”) with 32 of the best professional poker players in the world competing for the lion’s share of the $350,000 total prize pool, the $100,000 grand prize. The guest list of poker pros slated to compete in the knockout event to be played with a deep stack structure includes Vicky Coren,Andrew Feldman, Nam Le, Sammy “Any Two” George, Annette Obrestad, Roberto Romanello, Luke “Full Flush” Schwartz, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, JC Tran, Roland de Wolfe, and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan.

The event is being cosponsored with Matchroom Sport, and PKR will be contributing an addtional $30,000 to the total pot.

Now here’s the best part for at-home online poker players (in other words, the non-professionals not likely to be otherwise personally invited to the event): PKR is running satellite tournaments to award a total of 6 seats in the event. That means 6 PKR players will be sitting next to 26 of the world’s top poker stars. The buy-in the 26 pros are paying into the event is $10,000 a piece.

The event will be taped and then broadcast on television in 8 episodes of 2 hours in length each.