Demand still strong for Party Poker Premier League

GIBRALTAR -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- Unprecedented demand has meant that the final main $450 +$30 online qualifier on Party Poker for February's PartyPoker.com Premier League IV is now going to be held on Sunday 10th January at 15.20 ET rather than Sunday 17th January.

A PartyPoker.com spokesman said: "The holiday period is supposed to be a time of rest but the sheer demand of players wanting to qualify for the Premier League over recent weeks has meant we only have one more package to give away this weekend. We have had to cap the field for this weekend's online qualifier to 20 players. Those that may miss out on a place in this, however, needn't worry as there are still some country specific satellites available on Sunday 17th January and routes into them. These qualifiers can be found under the specials tab in the lobby. One thing is for sure, there are plenty of players out there with their eyes firmly fixed on the $100,000 Team Party contract!"

The latest news sees Yevgeniy Timoshenko join JC Tran in the pro line-up to make his Premier League debut. Timoshenko has taken the poker world by storm in recent years by winning the big WPT Championship Main Event at the Bellagio, taking down the 2008 Asian Poker Tour Macau title and the 2009 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event. Timoshenko was born in Kharkov, Ukraine but moved to Washington State when he was 10 years old. In the last couple of years he has established his reputation as a fearsome online and offline player.

2009 Poker Hall of Fame inductee Mike Sexton is one person who certainly rates Timoshenko. "He has completely taken the poker world by storm, first of all by winning over $2 million in live tournament earnings without cashing in a WSOP event and with all that he has done since. Yevgeniy is a good ambassador for the game. I never forget before the WPT Championship final table last year he went out and bought and new suit and got a haircut for the occasion. I think he is an excellent addition to the Premier League line-up."

Timoshenko said: "It is fantastic to be invited and I'm very happy to be competing in this tournament against the world's best!"

There are a number of different ways to qualify for Premier League IV from as little as $2. This year PartyPoker.com are running qualifiers to find a total of 16 players who will all fly out to Las Vegas to play in a Premier League Poker play-off to see which one of the 16 will be lucky enough to join 11 professional players in Premier League Poker IV. The lucky online qualifiers will play a short series of play-off sit & go's in Las Vegas and the eventual winner will win a $100,000 buy-in to take part in the main Premier League event! Both the play-off and the main event will be filmed for TV and shown across the world. One amazing element of this promotion that provides a truly fantastic opportunity is that one of the 16 qualifiers will be chosen by PartyPoker to receive a $100,000 Team Party contract to be a sponsored player. This decision will be made by PartyPoker within two weeks after the event takes place.

More information on the details and structure can be found at http://www.partypoker.com/news/items/premier_league.html

JC Tran won PartyPoker.com Premier League III after taking down the most formidable final table in the event's history! Tran, widely regarded as one of the finest and consistent tournament professionals on the circuit scooped the $300,000 first prize in the elite tournament that saw 12 of the world's finest players battle it out for a $1.25 million prize pool! Tom 'Durrrr' Dwan, Juha Helppi, Tony G, Roland de Wolfe and Peter Eastgate all made the final table.

This year's Premier League will carry a total prize pool of over $1.5 million. Premier League II was won by Andy Black and the inaugural event was taken down by Juha Helppi. The PartyPoker.com Premier League is organized by Matchroom Sport.