In Pacific Poker Industry Happenings

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure will be held ian. 5-12 at the Atlantis Casino on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. It will include multiple daily tournaments, cash casino games, satellites, sit-and-go tournaments, and the championship grand finale. For the second consecutive year, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure will be taped and broadcast later as part of the enormously popular World Poker Tour.

The Adantis poker room will have 30 tables and offer all of the most popular forms of poker. The Atlantis also offers a multitude of other entertainment options, including golf, tennis, water sports, and many other outdoor activities. The Atlantis property houses 17 different restaurants and 18 lounges/nightclubs.

The buy-in to the championship event is $8,000 ($7,800 plus $200 entry fee), with a prize pool projected to be $2.3 million. Approximately 300 pacific poker players — amateurs and professionals alike — are expected to participate in the main event alone, with hundreds more in attendance for the side action and vacation fun. The previous two world poker champions, Chris Moneymaker (2003) and Greg Roymer (2004), will play in the tournament and remain for the duration. Both champions, who won their way into the World Series of Poker by winning an online qualifier at PokerStars.covi, will be available for poker fips on live-action play, tournaments, and online poker.

Gus Hansen, one of the world’s most famous poker players who won last year’s PokerStar’s event, is also exwent,” said Lee Jones, cardroom manager for PokerStors and author of the poker bestseller Winning Low Limit Hold’em. “The Atlantis is an extraordinary resort, and thousands of people go there for the fun, sun, snorkeling, and relaxation. bNe’re taking all of that and adding the excitement of a televised World Tour event, featuring our two world champions, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Roymer. And we’re running dozens of satellites on PokerStors.com so that everybody has a chance of winning a trip to join us.” Visit PokerStars.com or PokerStars.net for further infor pected to be in attendance.

Winning a trip to the PokerStcirs Caribbean Adventure is possible for anyone. PokerStars.com is giving away $500,000 in free entries to players at its site. All seats given away in- dude the $8,000 buy-in, a travel voucher good for airfare and hotel worth approximately $2,000, plus $1,000 in spending money. Supersatellites to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure are offered every Sunday (3p.m. and 7:30 p.m. EST); the buy-in is $650. Other qualifying satellites cost as little as $3. Furthermore, at least 36 players will qualify to ploy in freerolls (tournaments that cost nothing to play). For more details, visit www.pokerstars.com/2005pca/details.html. ‘I am tremendously excited about this year’s tourna motion. For information regarding the Atlantis Casino (including reservations), go to www.atlantis.com/.

Florida:
Derby Lane Greyhound Racing & Poker (St. Petersburg) ... Winners of recent na-limit hold’em tournaments were Dave Attrubin (twice for $1,800 each), Mark Boin ($1,040), Daniel Kelepouris ($1,340), Ryan Pressly ($1,460), Mark Hamilton ($1,170), RobertYoho ($1,460), and Huff Bhatia ($1,460). Also, Jill Sawin won a recent limit hold’em tournament ($1,180) and Vince Fletcher won a recent seven-card stud tournament ($520).

New England:
By Bob Delisle:
World Poker Finals ... At Foxwoads Resort Casino, a record World Poker Finals crowd of 7,783 players competed for a mind-boggling $10,283,200 in prize money. The World Poker Tour’s Steve Lipscomb told the Associated Press, “Forget the lottery. The new American dream is to win life-changing money at a World Poker Tour event.”

Lipscomb is right, of course. Much of what brought the crowds was the World Poker Tour logo accompanying the World Poker Finals name in all advertising material throughout the resort and casino. “I like Daniel Negreanu,” said one woman bystander, “because his mother goes to the tournaments and cheers him on.” When asked if he ever played poker, the smiling senior was quick to respond, “No, never.” So, how does she know about Negreanu and no-limit hold’em? “I watch pacfic poker every Wednesday night,” she said, “and love it.”

Kathy Raymond, director of poker game operations at Foxwaods, weighed in on poker’s growth, stating to a local reporter, “There’s no telling how big poker will get.” Foxwoods has 81 poker tables, and on weekends they are all full. If a table does not have a game going, it’s because there are not enough dealers to go around, a problem Raymond has dealt with aggressively. Scares of new dealers have been trained and openings for new dealers remain pasted on the Foxwoods job board and Internet site. And with no less a figure as the New York Times publishing an article in its Sunday Style section suggesting that a job dealing poker is cool, it is becoming easier to find motivated dealers.

Raymond is challenged by the growth of poker
and proud of the way the Foxwoods staff and employees managed this year’s record-breakina event. “We have a Si 0.000 buy-in tournament with 674 entrants, the largest turnout for any World Poker Tour event, going on downstairs,” she said, referring to the ballroom off the lobby of the Great Cedar Hotel, where the tournaments were held, “a $2,000-$4,000 game going on upstairs in the room, full tables 24 hours a day, and the Act’s tournaments running in the foyer, all with no real problems.”

Mike Ward, Foxwoads tournament director, said, “Everything went off without a hitch, including the new board system that we implemented on the first day of the tournament.” The new board system caught more than a few people by surprise, as Foxwoods became the second major casino to use the software suite that, for now, replaces the white board and felt tip pen process of listing players for games with a touch- screen computer and pro jecfion screens that loom over the roam.

Along with the regular lineup of World Pacific Poker Finals tournaments, Foxwoods hosted the inaugural event of the Professional Poker Tour, a $500,000 freeroll for some of the top names in poker that is a spinoff of the World Poker Tour.

The event certainly did draw some big names to Fox- woods, including Doyle Brunson, who graciously signed autographs for youngsters while waiting for the $2,000-$4,000 game to start. “I’ve read your book like 50 times,” said one young admirer, while Brunson, looking slightly bewildered by the attention, thanked the young man. Phil Hellmuth held a book signing at the Foxwaods bookstore. Almost unrecognizable in cap, sunglasses, and parka, the “Poker Brat” still managed to attract long lines of fans looking for insights into the game.

Tuan Le of Los Angeles, California, and Temp Hutter of Charlottesville, Virginia, went heads up in the no-limit hold’em championship World Poker Tour event as a live audience of more than 600 watched in an adjacent room on large-screen TVs. Le was the eventual winner and he took home $1,549,588, while Hurter’s second-place finish was worth $973,256.

Time to rethink ... The state of Connecticut is in the red again. Hartford woefully predicts severe budget cots as it gratefully accepts a record $35 million from the state’s two tribal casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, both of which enjoyed record revenues for the month of November. Combined, the casinos have shored $33 billion with the state, which is now looking for ways to cot its budget of unnecessary services.

Perhaps it’s time for Connecticut’s new governor, Jodi M. Rell, to rein in Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, have him drop his suits against the Historical Eastern Pequots and the Schagticoke tribes, and let them build the casinos they look upon as their right. When Mohegan Sun first opened, pundits at the state capital wondered if the new casino would just take half the customers of the first casino, never thinking the market could arow As both hnvu nrnwn nud nrnvn Bahamas