NAPT Officially Announces Next Stop … The Bike in California
There’s been a lot of speculation about where the regulatory-challenged NAPT would head next, as it looks to spread across the US and/or Canada after a too awesome for its own good spectacular made-for-TV debut on American soil in Nevada at the Venetian.
Word was leaking to interested parties that it would indeed be at the Bike in California, with the Gold-Strike Tunica all but ready to be locked down, too. But now we know the plans for sure — the Bike it is, November 12-17, right after the November Nine — as does any else who might have an extreme stake in the future success and expansion of the North American Poker Tour presented by PokerStars.net.
THE POKERSTARS.NET NAPT ANNOUNCES AN EXCITING NEW STOP FOR SEASON 1
The PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour (NAPT) today announced the addition of a new stop to its Season 1 schedule. The NAPT will visit beautiful sunny Southern California for NAPT Los Angeles, a festival scheduled for November 12 – 17, 2010 at one of the largest poker rooms in the world, the incredible Bicycle Casino, aka ‘The Bike’.
“I’ve played at The Bike in the past and there is a strong local presence in LA,†comments poker legend and Team PokerStars Pro member Daniel Negreaunu. “It’s always really important for a tournament’s success to have a strong core of local players as it gives even more incentive to travel to the events when you know there will be big money on the line. I’m looking forward to playing.”
Others scheduled to be on hand for the new stop include highly renowned Team PokerStars.net Pros such as Vanessa Rousso, Barry Greenstein, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, 2004 WSOP Main Event winner Greg Raymer, plus returning WSOP champion; 2009 Main Event winner Joe Cada.
The festival will feature a five-day Main Event with a US$5,000 buy-in. There will also be a broad range of fun and exciting side events catering to players of all bankroll levels. Up-to-date information on the events and schedules will be posted on www.napt.com
Haig Kelegian, Managing Partner of The Bike, states, “We are very enthusiastic to secure the West Coast Tour stop. We clearly recognize the NAPT as the next major happening in the evolution of poker, and we have no doubt this Tour will entice and attract players from all over the world.”
Season 1 of the PokerStars.net NAPT has proven to be a resounding success. The NAPT’s first three festivals of Season 1 enjoyed tremendous support from players. Sixty different countries were represented in fields that numbered from 700 to 1,500.
The NAPT PokerStars.net Caribbean Adventure drew in a record-breaking 1,529 players with US based player Harrison Gimbel taking home $2.2 million for first prize. The NAPT Venetian title was won by 22-year-old online player Tom Marchese for $827,648 and the NAPT Mohegan Sun saw local Vanessa Selbst beat 716 players to win her biggest live tournament pay day to date of $750,000.
Players at all three events were treated to luxurious accommodation, amazing parties, and well-designed, professionally-run poker tournaments.
The easiest path to NAPT Los Angeles is by winning a free tournament package on PokerStars.net. Packages for the festival will include the US$5,000 entry fee for the Main Event, accommodation for the duration of the festival and a stipend for travel expenses.
About PokerStars.net:
PokerStars.net is the world’s largest online poker school with over 36 million members. It’s the premier destination for the world’s top players – with numerous tournaments running every day. PokerStars.net is renowned for offering the best software and security in the online poker world.
PokerStars.net is the official sponsor of the European Poker Tour, PokerStars.net Caribbean Adventure, Latin American Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker Tour and The World Cup of Poker. For more information please visit www.pokerstars.net
BJ Nemeth says:
June 15th, 2010 at 9:56am
It’ll be interesting to see if the Bicycle Casino is still part of the World Poker Tour schedule, like it has been for the past eight seasons.
SCOTT DIAMOND says:
June 15th, 2010 at 10:44am
You think they may not have Legends this year BJ? On their website they have the Logo and starting dates, but when you click on for the schedule it says error.
I tried calling 2 contacts I have there today and they did not answer. This will be interesting. The new Poker room at the Bike as you know is magnificent and can easily hold close to 600 players.
The Bikes only downfall is there is no nice hotel around and the traffic getting to there is terrible.
Legends has been a good tournament for the Bike. My first taste was at the 2006 Media Event when past winners and media were able to play a freeroll for a seat.
mattwaldron says:
June 15th, 2010 at 12:00pm
“Luxury accomidation”…where the hell are they going to find that in Commerce/Bell Gardens? You know who is the happiest with this announcement? The high limit cash game section at Commerce and the hotel attached to it. Hard to stay “baller” in Long Beach.
DanM says:
June 15th, 2010 at 12:23pm
i’d think the WPT legends in august is still on … but maybe their last one? total speculation here, but i had heard their numbers were down anyway.
Kevin Mathers says:
June 15th, 2010 at 2:03pm
There’s now a schedule for Legends of Poker on The Bike’s website:
http://www.thebike.com/tournaments/schedule/legends-2010-2010.html
BJ Nemeth says:
June 15th, 2010 at 3:57pm
The WPT’s website has the Bicycle listed on the schedule here:
http://www.worldpokertour.com/Shared/Tournaments/Seasons/2010-2011/WPT_Legends_of_Poker.aspx
It’s officially on the website, and it’s listed as a “televised event.” (Do we know if the NAPT will be televised?)
To be honest, I had no idea that the WPT schedule for Season IV had been released. If there was a press release, I completely missed it, either because I was neck-deep in WSOP issues, or perhaps I was driving around the country and it slipped past my radar.
Kevin Mathers says:
June 15th, 2010 at 8:08pm
Neil Johnson from PokerStars said the NAPT Bike event would NOT be televised at this time.
Matt Savage says:
June 16th, 2010 at 11:45am
The WPT is still at the Bike and at the Legends of Poker which is the Bike’s main tournament series of the year. The Bike will be both on the NAPT and WPT this year and the reason that the NAPT will not be televised is because the the WPT contract forbids it.
BJ Nemeth says:
June 16th, 2010 at 12:29pm
And that was the source of my confusion, Matt. I assumed that all NAPT events would be televised, which would conflict with the Bicycle Casino’s WPT contract.
The big story here is the lack of TV coverage. I’m sure PokerStars would love TV coverage for all their NAPT events, but did they have trouble finding a non-WPT casino that could handle the event? Or did ESPN say they weren’t going to televise all of the events anyway?
DanM says:
June 16th, 2010 at 2:06pm
I don’t know this, but am poking around in it, and think TV coverage, while obviously desired, is up in the air in many different places. And though I haven’t asked yet, I gotta think the NAPT has Plans A, B, and C for making sure there is some form of television coverage. As it pertains to the NAPT-Bike, they’ve got 148 days to figure something out for sure. Again, just guessing — hey, they’re my comments, I can do that — but with people like me and Poker Player Newspaper getting information and leaking words around poker, not to mention other promotional desires, the NAPT probably decided they needed to get word of the new tour-stop out before locking down TV contracts.
DanM says:
June 16th, 2010 at 2:09pm
p.s. just read matt savage’s comment. trust his word more than mine. then it becomes interesting to me that they chose their next stop in a place where TV coverage wasn’t an option.
SCOTT DIAMOND says:
June 16th, 2010 at 4:17pm
The Bike and Commerce are the only two Casinos here in LA that could handle the large amount of entrants the NAPT expects.They both have WPT events which keeps them from televising. Just like the Bellagio cannot host other large events as well as any of the WPT stops.
The only other Casino’s in Southern California that could handle a NAPT event would be San Manuel Indian Casino which not only has a huge poker room, they can reorganize their HUGE Bingo room like they do when they have the Annie Dukes sponsored freerolls. San Manuel does not have a hotel on site they use one a bout a mile away for their promotions.It is however only 35 minutes away from Ontario International Airport.
Pechanga resort and Casino can do this also and Pechanga has an onsite Hotel.Its down fall its not close to an airport and is about an hour and a half away from Ontario International.
The NAPT may not want to deal with Indian casinos because they are trying to get on line Poker here in California.
I have a ton of respect for the people at the WPT, when I had my charity Kim Burghart and others went WAY out of their way to support the cause. However I think the NAPT although a competitor is good for Poker and I hope they can get a TV contract with someone.
It is odd though they are doing this without one.
Dan…Matt Savage reads Pokerati….you must be thrilled! 🙂
Jim Wilson says:
July 5th, 2010 at 3:05pm
From what I have heard, the WPT was presented with a number of “will not return letters” from major casinos for 2011. A couple of major dropouts are rumored to be The Bike and Borgata in AC.
I think I hear the final bell ringing for WPT – so long, wish you could stay, but, you can’t.
I think that the NAPT WILL be the dominant poker tour over the next couple of years unless online gaming passes in the US – then, WSOP-C might have a chance of surviving.