Phl Poker Tour on Solar Sports

MANILA, Philippines - The pilot airing of the Philippine Poker Tour’s P10 million inaugural season is set today on various Solar Sports channels starting at 9 p.m.

Featured tonight over Sky Cable Channel 70, Destiny Channel 35, Cignal TV 45 and Cablelink 41 is the first of three episodes of the maiden leg won by Makati businessman Dexter Bryan Luna at the Metro Card Club in Pasig.

The television broadcast was sealed after the PPT and Solar signed a contract recently for the airing of the 10-leg nationwide series which will culminate in a Final Table of Champions among monthly winners in March. The battle royal will determine the Philippine representative to next year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

The P700,000 package for the grand champion consists of a round trip plane ticket to Las Vegas, hotel accommodation, pocket money and the $10,000 buy-in money for the WSOP main event.

Signing the contract were PPT founder and chairman Jojo Allado, PPT TV executive producer Noel Zarate, Solar vice president for sports operations and acquisitions Chum Cornejo and Solar network development head for TV sports networks Donna Reyes.

Zarate, former executive producer of Solar Sports’ “Sports Desk”, said the program, to be aired every Monday, will have veteran broadcaster Bob Guerrero and Asia Poker Academy coach Ron Regis as commentators and Bianca Saldua as host.

Aside from the action at the felt table, the show will include segments such as Poker 101 with Guerrero, Poker Strategies with Regis and Reading the Board with Saldua.