The first qualifying event of the
World Poker Tour's foray into China took place on Friday when 209 teams of two tried to become the first provincial qualifiers for the
China National Traktor Poker Tour grand final that's scheduled to take place next spring.
The qualifying event took place at the Sport Center in the city of Lanzhou and took three days to complete. The winning team was made of Zhu An Men and Chen Haili, who both live in Lanzhou. They are now the Gansu provincial champions.
In August, World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) secured an agreement with the government-sanctioned China Leisure Sports Administrative Center (CLSAC) to "brand and exploit" a poker tour using the Chinese card game Tuo La Ji, which is also known as Traktor Poker.
Traktor Poker is a trick-based partner card game that's played with a double deck of 52 cards (plus two jokers). The object of the game is to win tricks containing kings, tens, and fives.
In 2002, the CLSAC officially declared Tua La Ji Poker an official sport in China and adopted new national rules to unify the many local styles of play to allow for fair competition between all cities and provinces around China.
WPTE is paying China $505,000 a year to become the official "tour" for Traktor Poker (that increases by 10 percent every year). This gives the WPTE the rights to film and broadcast
Traktor Poker Tour events, as well as the exclusive rights to all online media content.
The Gansu provincial qualifier is the first of 15 that takes place in the next 15 weeks or so. A team from each of the 15 providences, as well as a team determined by an online qualifier, will play in the grand final. The exact date and location of the grand final, which will be filmed, has yet to be announced.
Players do not buy into these events, and all of the prizes that will be awarded at the grand final will be donated by sponsors.
