Everest’s Big Sponsorship Competition

See who made the cut in Everest Poker’s “Live the Dream” competition, and is now being paid over $100K just to play Poker! All details available here.

Not long ago, online Poker giant, Everest Poker, announced the launch of its exclusive “Live the Dream” promotional competition. Basically, it involved Everest Poker awarding $130,000 sponsorship deals to the top ten finalists. Just now, the competition has come to a close, and the names of the lucky ten players are in: Hungary’s Victoria Szlasi, Denmark’s Thomas Froslev, Norway’s Sigurd Eskeland, Spain’s Javier Martinez, the Netherlands’ koen de Bakker, Germany’s Ronny Pickard and Tobias Wagner, France’s Julien Claudepierre and Leonard Truche, and Fabian Perrot are each now being paid for playing their favourite game.
There were several ways in which players were able to qualify for the Live the Dream promotion. The first and most popular was tournaments, for which there was a leader-board race, the second was Poker game loyalty points, and the third was via tournaments which offered direct entry. In excess of 200 players qualified for the promotion’s initial rounds.
The second stage of the Live the Dream promotion involved a rigorous interviewing process. Carried out by Everest Poker staff and/or sponsored representatives of the website, the qualifying players had their Poker skills and popularity reviewed. One of the main aspects taken note of by these assessors was the players’ popularity online. Everest Poker had established player profiles which could be personalised by the players themselves, and these were rated by other Everest Poker users. France was the country to release the most qualifiers (58), with Germany coming in second (29). However, players came from all over; from Japan to Brazil.
The final stage of qualifying meant meeting the Everest Poker staff face to face. For this purpose, players were flown out to the Palais Auersberg in Asutria’s Vienna. The contestants were there grouped into two groups, and alternated between each other for interviewing and playing Poker cash games. The top 20 of this process were invited back for a final interviewing round, from which the final 10 players to be sponsored were chosen.
The first Live the Dream promotion took place in 2008, and in 2010, it is still the dream of every Poker player. The $130,000 sponsorship is designed to cover sponsorship of actual Poker play as well as world wide travel expenses. Everest poker believes that the players chosen represent the best of the online Poker playing world.