Beginning on July 12th, the third Dream Team Poker tournament will kick off. This time, it originates from the home of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, which will be taking place down the hall at the Rio in Las Vegas.
Poker News Daily sat down with Dream Team Gaming CEO Daniel Delshad for his thoughts just a few days out from the tournament, which boasts a $1,680 buy-in per three-man team.
Poker News Daily: You have Jose Canseco and a fleet of poker pros already registered for the event, which is now less than a week away. How excited are you for your WSOP debut?
Delshad: We’re all very excited and I’m looking forward to July 12th. After the Caesars event in March, it has been a fast turnaround until now.
PND: Has registration been better than, worse than, or about what you expected?
Delshad: We’re excited where we’re at. We already have 300 people pre-registered for the event. Poker players like to sign up late, so we’re in line with what we expected the numbers to be. We’ve had a lot of big names register, so that’s a good sign.
PND: Talk about the logistics for registration on the morning of the Dream Team Poker tournament at the Rio.
Delshad: Everybody will go to the cage to buy into the event. They’ll get a seat assignment and then go to our registration area down the hall to pick up their scorecards and jerseys.
PND: Are there any notable teams or entrants that you can share with us?
Delshad: Daniel Negreanu is in. Jamie Gold, Kenna James, David Williams, Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Liz Lieu, and Pam Brunson have all signed up. We have a really good list of people and we’re excited to have them out. Alex Outhred is back as our emcee. He’s very well-liked and he’s a great guy.
PND: You’ve done a spectacular job of one-upping yourself for each Dream Team Poker event ever since your debut at the Hard Rock. What’s next on the horizon?
Delshad: We’re continuing to grow. I think we’re getting a lot of demand for us to go international and we’ll take a look at it. There are a bunch of events overseas for us to partner with and we’re going to find the ones that are the best fit for us. We like to work with companies that are the leaders in their industries and we’re in active discussions with international events right now.
PND: Can you comment about the WSOP Main Event shutting out over 500 players on Day 1D? Does Dream Team Poker have any provisions in place to prevent a similar occurrence?
Delshad: We’ll be in the Brasilia Room, which will give us more space than being in the Amazon Room. We can fit a pretty good field in there. The WSOP has been run so smoothly from Day 1. It was just an unfortunate event on Monday. It happens, but they still had the third largest field in history. It shows that, despite the economy, poker is alive and well.
PND: Talk about the feedback you received from spectators and players alike who visited PokerPalooza and your booth outside the Amazon Room?
Delshad: It’s pretty amazing. We had a big registration area near the jersey wall. For so many people, this was their first time seeing our product.
PND: Talk about today’s media tournament taking on a team format. Will its winners be entered into the feature Dream Team Poker event?
Delshad: For us to have media event in the Dream Team Poker format is special. I love that the media has this opportunity because they can play the game themselves. The experience on the inside is completely different than beyond the rail. The media is battling against each other anyway in the real world and we’re expecting about 150 people to play.
The winning team will have a charity donation made in their name. We can’t give away seats into our events because the media can’t accept gifts.
