Global Poker League Expands Rosters, Determines Draft Order
On Tuesday afternoon the order for the Global Poker League Draft was determined in real-time on the GPL’s Twitch channel.
There was a second announcement made on Tuesday as well, as the GPL announced the roster size of each franchise has been expanded from five to seven players, with each manager now drafting four players from within the Global Poker Index Top 1,000 players (assuming the player opted-in for the GPL Draft), and rounding out their final rosters with two wild-card selections from within the GPI Top 1,000 players or beyond it.
Each of the 12 franchises’ draft order was determined at random. Here are the results:
Draft strategy
Interestingly, because GPL Draft Day will feature a snake draft (the team drafting first in Round 1 will draft last in Round 2) landing the #1 pick may not be the best draft position, as that franchise will have to watch 22 other players go off the board (two to each team) before they select again. And with four rounds, there’s likely to be multiple falloff points.
Because of this snake format, the best draft position largely depends on where you believe the biggest falloff occurs.
For instance, if a team manager believes there are eight players heads and shoulders above the rest, but on fairly equal footing with one another, than selecting first through eighth is preferable. However, if a team manager feels there are 15 players in this first grouping, with the remaining players of relatively similar skill, selecting 11th or 12th could be more desirable, as you’ll land two players in the top tier.
Here’s a look at the draft order by franchise, if you want to try to gauge who got the “best of it”:
Late round picks and free agents
With 200+ players to choose from, the third and fourth rounds will likely come down to the preferences of the individual team managers, and there are a lot of different factors that could come into play, and these same factors will likely come into play when it comes to their wild-card selections:
- Do they look for players that hail from the city or region their franchise represents?
- Do they go with players they know to build team chemistry?
- Do they go with well-known players for these spots or select the player they believe is the most talented?
In my opinion there are three things each manager will have to account for when selecting their team:
- The player’s skill;
- The player’s connection to the GPL franchise host city;
- The player’s marketability, which I consider personality plus name recognition plus reputation.