Poker Articles

By Dan | Published Oct 28 2009, 02:10 PM |

Dan djk123 Kelly was the first online poker player selected as part of a private PLB team competition set to begin on Sunday, November 1st. The snake draft, similar to what you’d find in fantasy football leagues, saw 40 players taken. Each, along with their 10 captains, has put up a healthy $1,000 to prove that they are tops in the online poker world. The payouts are $7,500 per player for the first place squad and $2,500 per player for the runner-ups. Let’s preview the teams.

Nick Grip Grippo (pictured at left) selected Kelly with the first overall pick in the draft. Kelly is number two on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and took the industry by storm with his performance in the 2009 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). Kelly won the $215 buy-in Razz event during the high-stakes tournament series for $53,000 and took down the $10,300 buy-in HORSE event two weeks later for another $252,000. His largest online poker score to date came by virtue of finishing fourth in the 2009 WCOOP Main Event for $643,000. Kelly owns the largest PLB Score on PocketFives.com as of October 29th.

On being the first player off the board, Kelly told PocketFives.com, “It's cool being picked first, but I hope I'm not the next Ryan Leaf.” In the 1998 NFL Draft, Leaf was selected second overall by the San Diego Chargers before being benched during his rookie season for a poor performance. He retired four years later.

With the second pick, Mark dipthrong Herm turned to one of the top names in the game, Chris moorman1 Moorman (pictured at right), a member of the DoylesRoom Brunson 10. Herm triumphantly typed “HA” after selecting Moorman, who sits in third in the Rankings. Moorman chopped the $322 No Limit Hold’em with Rebuys event during August’s running of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) for $204,000. In April, he final tabled the high-stakes Main Event of the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) for $113,000. The quintessential grinder, Moorman owns the second best Pro Poll score worldwide and is 5th overall in PLBs.

Also selected by Herm was Bjorn kleath Kleathersson, who commented, “We'll accept concession notes Nov. 2nd or you can take notes on funeral processions.” Kleathersson was plucked from the eligible pool of players in the third round.

Dave doubledave22 D'Alesandro had the third pick in the draft and claimed David Doc Sands Sands (pictured at left). The number five ranked player on PocketFives.com, Sands is also a former Monthly PLB winner. In May, Sands took down an FTOPS event for $259,000 and has won a multitude of Weekend Majors, including the Full Tilt $750,000 Guaranteed, Ultimate Bet $200,000 Guaranteed, Absolute Poker $150,000 Guaranteed, Sunday Mulligan, and the Sunday 500. Other than that, he’s been relatively quiet on the tournament felts.

Here are the rosters for the PLB competition, set to take place from November 1st to 11th:

Captain: Grip
Team: djk123, agriffrod, subiime, acgaming

Captain: dipthrong
Team: moorman1, norajean, kleath, princessdonk

Captain: doubledave22
Team: Doc Sands, gutshtallin, chicagocards1, bboy3110

Captain: gboro780
Team: Belabacsi, daisyxoxo, jet5087, wildman75

Captain: whitE_mAmbA
Team: pokerjamers, badpab2, geoffras22, shankingyou

Captain: theczar19
Team: xxjondxx, chipsteela, ronaldkosh, late_entry

Captain: apestyles
Team: brainwash, number1pen, peachymer, kice32

Captain: szusza84
Team: mendieta19, PiKappRaider, Tomif gsd, taypaur

Captain: bbbbb33
Team: govshark2, ryanbluf, bigdogpckt5s, thecronic420

Captain: Gags30
Team: NeverScaredB, comandr_cool, 99nvrlosez, flushy

Now for the rules. The event runs during the aforementioned 11-day period across tournaments on Full Tilt, PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, and Absolute Poker. A total of 30 scores will count per team and no more than 10 can come from one individual. In case you missed the draft, you can comb through all of the picks by checking out the PLB team competition thread in Poker Discussion.

We’d like to wish all of the competitors the best of luck in the contest.

* Note: This contest is not an official PocketFives event.  It is a privately-run contest, with all rules and guidelines set by the contestants.