Below are my grades for each of the six franchises in the GPL Eurasia Conference, based on three categories:
Overall skill Marketability Host city ties
MORE: GPL Draft Day grades for Americas Conference
Rome Emperors
Draft grades:
Skill - B+ Marketability - B+ Host city ties - A Overall draft grade - B+
Rome manager Max Pescatori made the first and last pick of the inaugural GPL draft with Mustapha Kanit and Walter Treccarichi bookending his other picks of Dario Sammartino and Timothy Adams.
The Rome team is heavy on Italian players, highly talented, and has a lot of personality. Where they fall a bit short is overall name recognition.
London Royals
Draft grades:
Skill - A+ Marketability - A Host city ties - B Overall draft grade - A
Team manager Liv Boeree grabbed her boyfriend, who just happens to be one of the best poker players in the world with her first pick, Igor Kurganov. Then she somehow landed Vanessa Selbst, Chris Moorman, and Justin Bonomo in rounds two through four.
How good was Boeree’s draft? Put it this way, no one would have batted an eyelash if all of Boeree’s draft picks went in the first 15 picks, as they’re all marketable, talented, and accomplished players.
Moscow Wolverines
Draft grades:
Skill - A Marketability - C Host city ties - A+ Overall draft grade - B+
Moscow team manager Anatoly Filatov stuck to his guns and exclusively picked his countrymen in the GPL draft. Filatov’s picks were, Dzimitry Urbanovich, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Andrey Pateychuk, and Sergey Lebedev.
A super talented roster, but the one issue the Russian team may have is a lack of English speakers, although if the charming and outgoing Filatov does the translating, everyone wins.
Berlin Bears
Draft grades:
Skill - A- Marketability - B+ Host city ties - A Overall draft grade - A-
Team manager Philipp Gruissem (using Lynn Gilmartin as a proxy) didn’t do what everyone expected and create a German dream team, instead he went the furthest outside the box, selecting Brian Rast, Sorel Mizzi, Dominik Nitsche, and Jeff Gross.
Mizzi is something of a wildcard, as the talented but polarizing poker pro is one of the only players drafted that has some baggage in the poker world.
Paris Aviators
Draft grades:
Skill - A- Marketability - A- Host city ties - A- Overall draft grade - A-
Team manager Fabrice Soulier started off with two really strong picks in Triple Crown winner and Frenchman Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Belgian Triple Crown winner Davidi Kitai, and got an absolute steal with Germany’s George Danzer in the third round, followed by a solid fourth round pick in Canadian Mike Leah.
Paris will be one of the more exciting and marketable teams in the league with a lot of cross-border appeal.
Hong Kong Stars
Draft grades:
Skill - Unknown Marketability - C+ Host city ties - A++ Overall draft grade - Incomplete
Team manager Celina Lin had a definite draft strategy as she picked four Asian player for the Hong Kong team, Weiyi Zhang, Raiden Kan, Dong Guo, and Bryan Huang, giving her a squad of relative unknowns and making Hong Kong the proverbial dark horse of the GPL.
As Daniel Negreanu stated on the live stream, this won’t be the most feared team, but the Hong Kong Stars are akin to an NFL team drafting players from small schools who were dominant against lesser competition. Celina’s picks could turn out to be the poker version of Randy Moss (Marshall) or Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State).
by Steve Ruddock
