Global Poker League Holds First Draft; Mustapha Kanit Picked First Overall

Global Poker League

The historic day finally arrived as the Global Poker League held its first-ever draft in Los Angeles, live streamed on the league's Twitch channel.

The draft, supported by commentary from poker legends Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth, saw 48 players selected in a four-round snake draft. The order of the draft was determined via random draw on Feb. 16, with more than 200 players available for selection. The commentary team dropped the bombshell that Antonio Esfandiari pulled his name out of the draft pool, and after the analysis wrapped up, it was on to the draft.

Max Pescatori, manager of the Rome Emperors, had the first pick and made his selection about 40 minutes into the stream: Mustapha Kanit. From there, the draft continued for about four hours as the teams slowly filled out pick by pick.

Here's a look at each of the 12 rosters with draft order:

Rome EmperorsMax Pescatori Montreal NationalsMarc-Andre Ladouceur
1Mustapha Kanit 1Mike McDonald
2Dario Sammartino 2Martin Jacobson
3Timothy Adams 3Pascal LeFrancois
4Walter Treccarichi 4Xuan Liu
     
New York RoundersBryn Kenney San Francisco RushFaraz Jaka
1Jason Mercier 1Phil Galfond
2Tom Marchese 2Tony Gregg
3Kevin MacPhee 3Kitty Kuo
4Jason Wheeler 4Anton Wigg
     
Las Vegas MoneymakersChris Moneymaker Sao Paulo MetropolitansAndre Akkari
1Anthony Zinno 1Darren Elias
2Jonathan Duhamel 2Byron Kaverman
3Jake Cody 3Thiago Nishijima
4Jonathan Little 4Joao Pires Simao
     
London RoyalsLiv Boeree Moscow WolverinesAnatoly Filatov
1Igor Kurganov 1Dzmitry Urbanovich
2Vanessa Selbst 2Vladimir Troyanovskiy
3Chris Moorman 3Andrey Pateychuk
4Justin Bonomo 4Sergey Lebedev
     
LA SunsetMaria Ho Berlin BearsPhilipp Gruissem
1Fedor Holz 1Brian Rast
2Olivier Busquet 2Sorel Mizzi
3Eugene Katchalov 3Dominik Nitsche
4Chance Kornuth 4Jeff Gross
     
Paris AviatorsFabrice Soulier Hong Kong StarsCelina Lin
1Bertrand Grospellier 1Weiyi Zhang
2Davidi Kitai 2Raiden Kan
3George Danzer 3Dong Guo
4Mike Leah 4Bryan Huang

*Image courtesy of the American Poker Awards/revolutionpix Incorporated.

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  • The first ever Global Poker League draft has concluded. Check out the rosters here.

  • Mustapha Kanit was the first ever draft pick of the Global Poker League. Who else got picked?

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