Will Hill GP III

The William Hill Grand Prix II had arguably the greatest ever line up of poker players to gather for a UK tournament and now the viewing public will be able to watch all the action as the exclusive broadcast of the £500,000 event begins on Sky Sports on Wednesday 17th January.

Including some of the worlds best poker players, such as Americans Phil ‘Unabomber’ Laak and Antonio Esfandiari and top Europeans Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, Andy Black, Pascal Perrault and Mickey Wernick, the tournament consists of 7 heats, the semi final and grand final and the action will unfold over 10 weeks every evening at 10pm.

With forty four of the ‘Gods of Poker’ pitted against just 12 ‘mere mortal’ qualifiers from on-line and land based tournaments, the William Hill Grand Prix owes it’s popularity to it’s virtually unique TV structure. Designed to bring out the true skill of poker rather than crammed around tight television production schedules, and with it’s stunning luxury penthouse location and extra £164,000 added to the pot by sponsors William Hill, the Grand Prix II aims to be the ‘creme de la creme’ of poker tournaments.

With such a terrific line up of players even the heats look ultra competitive, with just the winner from each of the seven heats qualifying to the final. The semi-final will be played by the second placed players from each heat, giving one of them another opportunity to make it to the final table.

The programme begins on 17th January 2007 with the William Hill GPII Final schedule to be shown on Wednesday 14th March. And if you miss the Wednesday broadcast of any of the programmes, Sky will also be repeating the each show at various times the following day (every Thursday).

HEAT 1 Broadcast Wednesday 17 th January 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital
1. Andy Black IRE
2. Joe Beevers GB
3. Mickey Wernick GB
4. Tore Lagerborg NOR
5. Roy Brindley GB
6. Vicky Coren GB
7. Kevin Poast GB Qual
8. Wayne Hutchins GB Qual

HEAT 2 Broadcast Wednesday 24th January 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital
1. Barny Boatman GB
2. Surinder Sunar GB
3. Liam Flood IRE
4. Jeff Lisandro ITA
5. Julian Thew GB
6. Paul Jackson GB
7. Anthony McConnell IRE Qual
8. Brian Cassidy GB Qual

HEAT 3 Broadcast Wednesday 31st January 2007 Sky Sports 3 Digital
1. Pascal Perrault FRA
2. Ross Boatman GB
3. Dave Colclough GB
4. Johnny Lodden NOR
5. Xuyen Pham GB
6. Willie Tann GB
7. Voitto Rintala FIN Qual
8. Marcus Bebb-Jones GB Qual

HEAT 4 Broadcast Wednesday 7th February 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital
1. Antonio Esfandiari USA
2. Ram Vaswani GB
3. Keith Hawkins GB
4. JP Kelly GB
5. Sean Murphy IRE
6. Ben Grundy GB
7. Shelley Mullett GB Qual
8. Sami Yusuf GB Qual

HEAT 5 Broadcast Wednesday 14th February 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital
1. Phil Laak USA
2. Ken Lennaard SWE
3. Marc Goodwin GB
4. Julian Gardiner GB
5. Harry Demetriou GB
6. John Kabbaj GB
7. Jeff Kimber GB Qual
8. Oliver Puhr AUT Qual

HEAT 6 Broadcast Wednesday 21st February 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital
1. Tony G AUS
2. Juha Helppi FIN
3. Devilfish GB
4. Peter Costa GB
5. John Shipley GB
6. Brian Wilson USA
7. Steve Vladar GB
8. Bo Sehlstedt SWE Qual

HEAT 7 Broadcast Wednesday 28th February 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital
1. Tony Bloom GB
2. Ben Roberts GB
3. Robert Williamson III USA
4. Martin Wendt DEN
5. Christer Johansson SWE
6. Roland de Wolfe GB
7. Stuart Fox GB
8. Russ Taylor GB Qual

SEMI FINAL: Broadcast Wednesday 7th March 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital

FINAL: Broadcast Wednesday 14th March 2007 Sky Sports 2 Digital