De Wolfe and Annette are confirmed

http://www.partypoker.com is pleased to announce that Annette Obrestad and Roland de Wolfe are the next players to receive invitations to PartyPoker.com Premier League III, which will take place in London from the 24–30th November 2008. The participation of Annette marks her Premier League debut, while Roland will be looking to go one better after finishing runner-up in PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker II. This star pair joins Andy Black, Juha Helppi and JC Tran as confirmed players in the line-up.

Norwegian sensation Obrestad exploded on to the scene in September 2007 by winning the inaugural WSOPE Main Event the day before her 19th birthday, scooping £1 million in the process. Prior to the 2007 WSOPE, Obrestad had only cashed in four other live tournaments but had a huge reputation as a top online player. In July 2007, it is suggested that Obrestad won a $4 buy-in 180 person online STT where she is said to have played almost the entire tournament without looking at her cards. She claims she sneaked a peek at her cards once during the tournament when faced with an all-in decision. She did this to show, “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table.”

On being invited to PartyPoker.com Premier League III Obrestad said: ““The Premier League is a poker event that I am extremely excited about. It has a good structure, the best players from around the world and amazing prize money. I’m looking forward to the games, the rivalry and of course winning!”

Joining Annette is the UK’s Roland de Wolfe, who took part in the PartyPoker.com Premier League I and II. De Wolfe was the first player to win both a WPT and EPT and finished runner-up in both Premier League II and 2008 PartyPoker.com Late Night Poker.

Roland has a rich Premier League history with many remembering how he tried to secure his place at the final table in season two after what looked like a comfortable run in the league stages. The final heat of this stage saw Roland need just one point to win an automatic place at the final table and he adopted a very conservative style only to bust out with zero points. This meant de Wolfe had to play in a heads-up match with Eddy Scharf for a place at the final table that had seemed almost guaranteed. He won the match and went on to the final table and scooped $125,000 for finishing runner up to Andy Black.

One of the rivalries that marked seasons one and two is set to be reignited. Nobody wants to bust each other as much as Roland and Juha Helppi, a rich history of being at the business end of tournaments together has seen to this.

De Wolfe said: “I’m going to come back and put on a show. The Premier League to me is one of the best events in poker. Last time I out I played the best and will get the win I deserve this time around.”

PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker III sees the buy-in elevated to $75,000 and the added money raised to $350,000, making a total prize pool of $1.25 million. The next event wasn’t due to take place until 2009 but the demands of international broadcasters for coverage of the event has brought it forward!

The series, developed by Matchroom Sport, features 12 of the world’s best players playing in a unique league format. All 12 players will play six times in the preliminary stages. The leading four players will then progress to the final table with the next four battling it out in heads-up matches for the final two seats. The first player to be announced was Premier League II winner, Ireland’s Andy Black, who is automatically invited back as the defending champion with Juha Helppi, JC Tran and now Obrestad and de Wolfe added to the line-up.