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Introduction

The CNPTL is now online
Partnership CNPTL | Party Poker | World Poker Tour

The Canada Poker Tournament League was founded in the stated objective of enabling people across the country to engage in competitive poker in a friendly, safe and free setting. It’s with this goal in mind that Poker Tour Management came to sign an agreement with PartyPoker.com | World Poker Tour, in order to improve what is offered to its members, starting this coming April 30th.

"When we looked at ways to improve what we offer our members, a partnership with a website quickly emerged as natural. If we add that this partnership is made with a reputable and innovative site such as PartyPoker, I cannot help but say that this is great news for our members," said Pierre Martel, president of Poker Tour Management.

The news is excellent because, even before we ask him, Pierre Martel explains that: "The prizes which will be offered through tournaments and events on the Internet will come from a whole new pot. It consists of prizes, tournament seats and qualifications that are in addition to what we already offer to our members playing in venues. For example, we will offer, through our online initiative, reserved seats to tournaments for which the live qualifications, in our venues, have already been completed. It really complements the prizes that we already offer and adds completely new and separate championships for our members ".

Moreover, the tournaments offered jointly by the CNPTL and PartyPoker.com will currently be limited to the time slot of midnight to 11am, when no venue in the league is holding tournaments or Friday and Saturday nights, when venues don’t need to hold tournaments to attract customers.

"The social aspect of competitive poker is vital for us," says Mr. Martel. It is no coincidence that the league was founded in public establishments with the camaraderie as the primary attribute. However, we know that some members are limited in the number of tournaments they can play either in a location where there are few venues or by a schedule conflict with the traditional activities of CNPTL. We’re thinking first and foremost about these players with this new measure."

Thus, qualifications to regional tournaments and even the Stage Championships will be awarded to members who take part in joint CNPTL / PartyPoker tournaments.

Furthermore, some regional finals, where players have qualified in their venues, will also be played on the PartyPoker platform. For example, frequent venue players, who play two live tournaments in a week, will also have the opportunity to participate in free reward-tournaments on PartyPoker.

"All poker sites have a model where they qualify people on the Internet to bring them to live events. We decided to reverse the model and offer seats to some interesting online tournaments from qualifications made in our venues, illustrates Mr. Martel. With this new model, we can enjoy the camaraderie of poker in person while reducing costs for players who are expected to travel for qualifications and finals. It was getting expensive for some players to spend two, three or even four days in Montreal for two or three qualifications annually. We wanted to reduce the costs of these tournaments while maintaining our model of world-class tournaments for major finals and Championships."

Despite the reverse model, the league members will continue to represent their region, their province and their country in major poker events at the Casino de Montréal, the World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour tournaments.

"The recent acquisition of World Poker Tour by PartyGaming has weighed in the balance when we made the decision to partner with them," says Mr. Martel. We know how important it is for our members to represent their part of the country internationally. Thus, through our online initiatives, we will add more trips to major events each quarter.

"The immediate impact of this new partnership with Party Poker | World Poker Tour already allows us to guarantee one or more entry in a WPT or WSOP tournament of up to a total of $10,000 as soon as the next CNPTL Stage Championship which will be held at the Casino de Montréal in May 2010. Party Poker will also award prizes for each Player of the Week, each Player of the Month and each Player of the Year (Canadian and Provincial) as well as several other prizes through our promotions such as the cocktail on May 28th 2010 at the Montreal Sheraton." adds Pierre Martel enthusiastically.

It is also online that we will find the tournaments reserved for tournament directors and owners of establishments for who it is always difficult to qualify through the regular structure of the league.

The League members will also have, through the new online initiative, one more reason to participate in the GPT scoring system. Free tournaments to qualify for the finals will only be offered to those members. However, all members, whether active or not in the scoring system, will have the chance to play in special tournaments where an administration fee of $2 will be incurred to play.

If this was not enough, Mr. Martel’s partner (and holder of a World Series of Poker title) André Boyer and other surprise guests will play in some joint CNPTL / PartyPoker tournaments and where a bounty will be put on their heads. Great rewards await players who succeed in eliminating them.

The joint CNPTL / PartyPoker initiative will take off as soon as April 30th where players will be invited to link their CNPTL account/profile with their PartyPoker account in order to start participating in tournaments created from this new initiative that recognizes the reality of online poker while retaining the aspects of competition and camaraderie that is the foundation of the CNPTL.