Global Poker League Holds First Draft; Mustapha Kanit Picked First Overall
The historic day finally arrived as the Global Poker League held its first-ever draft in Los Angeles, live streamed on the league's Twitch channel.
The draft, supported by commentary from poker legends Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth, saw 48 players selected in a four-round snake draft. The order of the draft was determined via random draw on Feb. 16, with more than 200 players available for selection. The commentary team dropped the bombshell that Antonio Esfandiari pulled his name out of the draft pool, and after the analysis wrapped up, it was on to the draft.
Max Pescatori, manager of the Rome Emperors, had the first pick and made his selection about 40 minutes into the stream: Mustapha Kanit. From there, the draft continued for about four hours as the teams slowly filled out pick by pick.
Here's a look at each of the 12 rosters with draft order:
| Rome Emperors | Max Pescatori | Montreal Nationals | Marc-Andre Ladouceur | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mustapha Kanit | 1 | Mike McDonald | |
| 2 | Dario Sammartino | 2 | Martin Jacobson | |
| 3 | Timothy Adams | 3 | Pascal LeFrancois | |
| 4 | Walter Treccarichi | 4 | Xuan Liu | |
| New York Rounders | Bryn Kenney | San Francisco Rush | Faraz Jaka | |
| 1 | Jason Mercier | 1 | Phil Galfond | |
| 2 | Tom Marchese | 2 | Tony Gregg | |
| 3 | Kevin MacPhee | 3 | Kitty Kuo | |
| 4 | Jason Wheeler | 4 | Anton Wigg | |
| Las Vegas Moneymakers | Chris Moneymaker | Sao Paulo Metropolitans | Andre Akkari | |
| 1 | Anthony Zinno | 1 | Darren Elias | |
| 2 | Jonathan Duhamel | 2 | Byron Kaverman | |
| 3 | Jake Cody | 3 | Thiago Nishijima | |
| 4 | Jonathan Little | 4 | Joao Pires Simao | |
| London Royals | Liv Boeree | Moscow Wolverines | Anatoly Filatov | |
| 1 | Igor Kurganov | 1 | Dzmitry Urbanovich | |
| 2 | Vanessa Selbst | 2 | Vladimir Troyanovskiy | |
| 3 | Chris Moorman | 3 | Andrey Pateychuk | |
| 4 | Justin Bonomo | 4 | Sergey Lebedev | |
| LA Sunset | Maria Ho | Berlin Bears | Philipp Gruissem | |
| 1 | Fedor Holz | 1 | Brian Rast | |
| 2 | Olivier Busquet | 2 | Sorel Mizzi | |
| 3 | Eugene Katchalov | 3 | Dominik Nitsche | |
| 4 | Chance Kornuth | 4 | Jeff Gross | |
| Paris Aviators | Fabrice Soulier | Hong Kong Stars | Celina Lin | |
| 1 | Bertrand Grospellier | 1 | Weiyi Zhang | |
| 2 | Davidi Kitai | 2 | Raiden Kan | |
| 3 | George Danzer | 3 | Dong Guo | |
| 4 | Mike Leah | 4 | Bryan Huang |
*Image courtesy of the American Poker Awards/revolutionpix Incorporated.
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