Premier League starts Sunday

Better watch out Hellmuth. Tony G is gunning for you.

The countdown has begun for the PartyPoker Premier League in London. Pros from around the world are already making their way to the U.K. for the event which starts Feb. 10.

The Premier League will feature 12 players competing for a $1 million prize pool in a unique format developed by Matchroom Sport.

The participants will play six times in the preliminary stages, and then the leading four players from those heats will progress to the final table. The four runners up from the heats will battle in heads-up matches for the last two seats at the final table.

Participants buy into the game for $60,000, and PartyPoker is adding $280,000 to make the total prize pool $1 million. That's double what it was for last year's Premier League.

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So who will be taking on this challenge? Juha Helppi will return to defend his title. Joining him at the tables will be Phil Hellmuth, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, Tony G, Andy Black, Ian Fraser, Roland De Wolfe, Vicky coren, Eddy Scharf, Annie Duke, Marcel Luske and Alexander Kravchenko.

"Premier League is something I look forward to for months," said Tony G. "It's the best event in poker in my book. Last year was a disaster for me, and I want to prove it was a freaky event. Only winning this year will make things right for me, and I want to bust Hellmuth so, so hard to get him on a boat back to the U.S."

Right now it looks like PartyPoker's sister site, PartyBets, believes Tony G just might have what it takes to win the Premier League this year. He's favored to win with odds of 6/1.

A PartyBets.com spokesman said, "The early money has been for Tony G but it is so hard to pick a winner in a field so strong. We have also seen a lot of interest in Juha retaining his title."

The event takes place at 3 Mills Studio, London Feb. 10-16 and will be first broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom in late March and then distributed internationally.

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