The inaugural edition of the Global Poker League (GPL) has just been completed and the GPL will now move to Las Vegas for the GPL Playoffs and the GPL Final.
The Playoffs were initially scheduled to be held in San Diego as a part of TwitchCon, which is a conference organized by Twitch and the final was to be held in London, England. Alex Dreyfus, CEO of the GPL said that the changes were made after a review of the first half of the season.
Additionally, the GPL has announced that the second leg of the regular season has been moved back by a few weeks and will now start on September 20.
The change in the schedule was done so that GPL games did not clash with other large poker tournaments. Dreyfus pointed out that the second half of the season would have clashed with a number of important tournaments like the EPT Barcelona, Burning Man and WCOOP which might impact GPL negatively.
Global Poker Index
According to Dreyfus, the first GPL season has been a success although there are a number of improvements that can be made to future seasons. In a statement, Dreyfus said,
We've pulled it off so far. We started with an idea and we've now delivered a draft of 12 teams consisting of the best poker players in the world. We've delivered online events, and we've delivered live events with the Cube and a TV studio in Las Vegas. All of this, we delivered in good and bad ways. However we delivered and we've built the foundation of the league.
Discussing the reasons for the change in venue, Dreyfus said that with the dates for the regular season being shifted, there was no requirement for players to fly down to San Diego just for the playoffs.
With regard to not holding the Final in London, Dreyfus said that there were two reasons for change in location. One was that 40 percent of GPL viewers were from the U.S, a trend that had developed over the last few months. The other reason Dreyfus explained was that as a company, the GPL was not currently ready to deliver the best possible live event in London.
He said that the company was not experienced enough to handle it a London final as of now. Dreyfus emphasized that the GPL was here to stay, saying the company was focused on being around for a long time and needed to make decisions towards that goal. He added that the league was now at 1 percent of its potential given that no marketing had been undertaken so far.
