Ten Everest Poker players were celebrating in Vienna this week, and with good cause; they are the beneficiaries of major sponsorships worth $100 000 apiece in the company’s imaginative “Live the Dream” marketing initiative, which came to a close in the romantic Austrian city.
The promo attracted over 50 000 international players, a spokesman confirmed, explaining that entrants participated in online qualifiers from September to December 2009 with two hundred surviving to compete in the final live event at the Palais Auersperg over January 9-10. These 200 players then had to impress judges through an exhaustive series of measures designed to evaluate individual live and online poker skills and personal qualities suitable for the honour of being a brand ambassador for the company.
Only ten of the 200 could be picked, and a spokesman said that it was a difficult choice that had finally produced a list of:
* Fabien “SchumyFab” Perrot
* Leonard “leoledingo” Truche
* Julien “Garrincho54” Claudepierre
* Ronny “Spadesman” Pickard
* Tobias “Tobestar11” Wagner
* Koen “koendb” de Bakker
* Javier “elflacokanu” Martinez
* Sigurd “TheBigViking” Eskeland
* Thomas “DannyMcCoy” Froslev
* Viktoria “SexyGirl” Szlasi
This exclusive player group will now represent Everest Poker at the biggest tournaments in the world over the next 12 months including the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event, with $30 000 travel packages and $100 000 each for expenses and buy-ins.