A “world-first streamers’ showdown” has been promised by partypoker, as well known faces from the worlds of poker and gaming collide in The Big Deal.
The Big Deal, a freeroll tournament which will be held this weekend, on Saturday 14 November from 5pm GMT, sees partypoker offer a prize pool of $50,000, which players will personally be invited to compete for.
Famous poker professionals will be playing in the tournament, such as Jeff Gross, Jaime Staples, Matt Staples and Benjamin Rolle. The list of esports streamers taking part includes Dota 2 players Troels ‘SyndereN’ Nielsen and Ted J Forsyth, who goes by the name of “Pyrion Flax.”
Jeffrey ‘SjoW’ Brusi, a former professional poker player who later became known for his prowess playing StarCraft II, and strategy game streamer ‘Quill18’, will also be taking part.
Vadim Soloveychik, partypoker marketing director, explained: “We are excited to host The Big Deal. This is a new format designed for Twitch, where streamers compete not only for the prize pool, but also for their audiences as a bounty. I am sure it will be fun to watch.”
All streamers will talk viewers through their plays on their own platform, supported by esports production company Beyond the Summit. The firm will also be providing content for partypokerTV throughout the tournament.
All players must be knocked out three times before they exit the tournament, and whichever player knocks them out for the third time will ‘raid’ their viewers. Raids help streamers send their viewers to another channel at the end of their stream.
The final table will be streamed live on partypokerTV, with Maria Ho, one of the top three female poker players in the world, and poker streamer Joey Ingram providing commentary. The commentators will be based at the Beyond the Summit Studio in Los Angeles.
