The Asian Poker Tour (APT) has announced a groundbreaking partnership with online gaming platform Natural8 that will allow players to play part of the upcoming APT Finale Macau tournament series online.
In a first for the APT, the partnership will provide players the chance to play Day 1 of both the APT Finale Macau Main Event and APT Finale Macau Championships Event online.
The online starting days will be hosted by Natural8 on 19 November 2017 at 21:00 local time and will follow the same tournament structure as the live starting days of the events, with buy-ins of US$1,410 for the Main Event and US$2,820 for the Championship Event.
Qualifiers from the online starting days will automatically be part of the Day 2 fields at the live event, to be held at Macau Billionaire Poker located at Babylon Casino in Macau from 29 November to 10 December 2017.
“It’s exciting for both players and us,” said APT Executive Tournament Director Lloyd Fontillas. “For the first time ever, players now have an option to qualify to Day 2 of the Main and Championship Events by playing Day 1 online through Natural8. We hope to build on this for other APT events as well.”
A similar concept has been trialed during some bracelet events at the World Series of Poker but this is the first time it has been implemented in Asia.