English
Friday 3rd February, 2017

Loving poker players is really fundamental – Duthie describes his new role at partypoker LIVE

By Mad Harper

New partypoker LIVE President John Duthie talked to partypoker about his new role and outlined his approach to rejuvenating live events. Duthie, who founded the European Poker Tour in 2004, will be leading the helm as the new partypoker LIVE tour heads off around Europe and beyond.

 

All partypoker LIVE events will offer a minimum of 5M GTD for 5k buy-in events, 1M GTD for 1Ks and 500K GTD for 200 buy-in with plans to visit as many continents and countries as possible. Dates already lined up include the partypoker Million in Sochi which will have a $1,1000 Main Event with $1m guarantee and run March 23-27 at the spanking new Sochi Casino & Resort. partypoker LIVE has also confirmed dates for the partypoker Million Germany – another $1k Main Event with €1 million guarantee taking place June 1-5 at King’s Casino, Rozvadov.

 

Duthie is aiming to put players first in everything he does at partypoker LIVE. He said: “Loving poker players is really fundamental. Tournaments don’t exist without players. So whoever is running a tournament needs to remember that they’ve been given the privilege of running that tournament for the players. It’s not about “us and them”; it’s about the players allowing us to run it on their behalf.

 

“We’ve tried to think “If players were to get together and choose where they wanted to play, where would it be?” And it would be in venues like Playground or DTD or King’s.”

 

“The aim is to have huge player-friendly events with very, very large prize pools, large guarantees, good food, good staff and just fun. If you lose, you go away thinking ‘actually I had a great time and I’ll go back.’”

 

Talking about the forthcoming event in Sochi next month, Duthie added: “I think is going to be very interesting … a very good event. Generally speaking, I think that in Russia they know how to enjoy themselves. As do poker players – they always bring a bottle to a party! Put those two together and it could get messy, but there’s no doubt it will be great fun.”

 

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