Qualification Requirements Revealed for Pro Poker League

Federated Sports and Gaming announced more details about their professional poker league Tuesday, with the most significant announcement perhaps being the criteria that will be used to award tour cards.

Players who meet the criteria and will be given cards for the first season were also announced. Cards were awarded based on lifetime winnings, major titles, and cashes. The longest card is a 5-year exemption, which required $4 million or more in lifetime winnings (with no single win being able to count for more than $2 million of that requirement), at least three major titles, and a minimum of $600,000 and 9 cashes coming since 2008.

Those players receiving 5-year cards are essentially a who’s who of top players, with a few surprises thrown in. The complete list for players receiving that status is as follows:

Daniel Alaei

David Chiu

Hoyt Corkins

Scott Clements

Allen Cunningham

Roland De Wolfe

Freddy Deeb

Chris Ferguson

Barry Greenstein

Phil Hellmuth

Phil Ivey

John Juanda

Howard Lederer

Erick Lindgren

Jeff Lisandro

Mike Matusow

Michael Mizrachi

Carlos Mortensen

Daniel Negreanu

Men Nguyen

Scotty Nguyen

John Phan

Huck Seed

Erik Seidel

Vanessa Selbst

JC Tran

The requirements, which meant that a player both had to have significant career success and plenty of recent success as well, was a difficult one to meet for many top players. However, most of the biggest names not on the list above did meet the requirements for one of the shorter-term exemptions; three-year and two-year cards were also awarded for players meeting similar (but lesser) requirements.

On the other hand, there were some notable names who didn’t make the cut at all – particularly due to the fact that the qualification rules were designed not to allow for “one hit wonders” to earn cards without additional success. Top professionals who hadn’t performed at a high level in tournaments in the last few years were also left out. Notable players who did not qualify for tour cards included Chris Moneymaker, Jamie Gold, Jonathan Duhamel, Todd Brunson, Dan Harrington and T.J. Cloutier.

For many professional players who find themselves on the bubble for earning a tour card, there may be one last chance to get over the hump. According to a report in USA Today, the list of players earning cards will be updated once more on August 1^st, when most of the World Series of Poker will have been played.

At the moment, there are 218 players with tour cards. The first event of the first season will be played in early August.