PartyPoker.com announced today that an outstanding group of poker players including Mike Sexton the ‘Ambassador of Poker’, will participate in the PartyPoker.com's World Open IV to take place in London, England between April 25 and May 2nd, 2008. According to the company's subsidiary, PartyBets.com, which is offering odds on the event, Neil Channing the most recent Irish Open winner, is the favored winner, at 16/1 odds.

A company spokesman has said that although Mike Sexton is a incredible addition to the World Open program, he is only one star in an event that will also feature Marc Goodwin, Juha Helppi, Barny Boatman and Jan Peter Jachtmann, making it clear that he will have to work hard to hold his own.

There are also other well known personalities that will participate including Nick Slade, the recent PartyPoker.com European Open IV winner. In addition there are Marty Smyth, Thomas Bihl, Theo Jorgensen, Ian Frazer, Roberto Romanello, Ross Boatman, Pippa Flanders, Jon Kalmar, Jon Magill, Surinder Sunar, Roy Brindley, John Tabatabai and Liam Flood.

The event is being put together by Matchroom Sport, which later this year will also be broadcasted on Channel 5 in the UK and then distributed internationally.

There are 72 runners scheduled to participate at an $8,000 buy-in.  The event features a total prize pool of $576,000 with a first prize of $250,000. Last year's winner was Anthony Hardy, the 45-year-old former Sidcup betting shop owner. He beat out a final table that included David Rudling, Ian Cox, Ian Frazer, Ram Vaswani, and the runner-up, Ian Woodley. In 2006 the winner was Pippa Flanders. The 2005 winner was Lee Nelson who won in the event's first year.

There are 12 heats. Each heat's winner progresses to the semi-final stage. This year, for the first time in the history of the event, the runners-up at the table will be allowed to fight it out for the remaining two semi-final spots in what will be in effect the “last chance” turbo heats.

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