Guangdong Group Limited, a major Macau-based VIP junket operator, and PokerStars have jointly launched the GuangDong Limited Asia Millions (GDAM) tournament, which will be held at the Live poker room in City of Dreams Casino in Macau from June 4 to June 7.
The highlight of the GDAM will be a HK$1,000,000 buy-in re-buy tournament with two re-buys worth HK$1,000,000. The poker community already calls it
the biggest poker tournament ever held outside of the World Series of Poker in terms of prize pool as well as the largest ever high-roller event by number of players.
On June 4, a HK$250,000 Warm Up Event will be also be held.
Danny McDonagh, PokerStars director for Asia-Pacific live poker operations, said:
This is going to be one of the most amazing poker tournaments of all time. We are expecting over 100 players to sit down and play and one of the biggest prize pools for a poker tournament outside of the World Series of Poker. It’s going to be seriously huge!
The Guangdong Group organized a live poker tournament with a buy-in of HK$2,000,000 in Macau last August, a high-roller event that attracted a field of 73 players and generated a HK$182,360,000 prize pool. Prominent professional poker players such Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Sam Trickett, and others took part in this high-stakes event. Ultimately, it was Stanley Choi who won the first place prize of HK$150,149,000.
Guangdong Group CEO Winnie Strong said that the company is happy about organizing another high-roller live poker tournament, adding that the synergy between PokerStars and Guangdong Limited is very strong. She also expressed hopes that the event would be just as stunning and exciting as the previous one.
Meanwhile, online poker players can qualify for the event at PokerStars. The online poker room will be giving away a GDAM prize package worth US$132,000.
Here are some of the big non-WSOP live and online poker tournaments with prize pools generated in brackets—the 2012 Macau High Stakes Challenge Super High Roller Tournament held in Macau ($23,511,128), the 2007 WPT Championship held in USA ($15,495,750), the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) held in Bahamas ($15,132,000), the 2008 European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final held in Monaco ($13,323,417), the 2011 PokerStars 10th Anniversary Sunday Million held on PokerStars.com ($12,423,200), and the 2007 World Poker Tour (WPT) Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic held in USA ($9,661,200).
