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’.
If they just added a little Omaha, this show might be awesome … but apparently American players can’t handle that many cards? Alas … the rest of the world thinks we are dumb. Atill seems like it will be a pretty good, well-received show … a little new-school High Stakes Poker meets old-school World Poker Tour maybe?
Here’s the first look at the latest new poker infomercial set to repeatedly hit the cable-wire broadcast television — the PokerStars.net Big Game. This clip features a pretty fun hand that you gotta think might have Phil Hellmuth on tilt at least until WSOP Event #30something. It’s a $200k pot, with Hellmuth an 85 percent favourite over the must-win amateur “loose cannon” … but running it four times isn’t even enough for Hellmuth to get half the pot. (He woulda been better off running it once.)
Yeow, with that much on the line and a bad beat x3, it’s almost as if some people might see this and not think of poker as a game of skill at all!
PSBG debuts Monday, June 14, “late night” daily on Fox (Sports, I presume?) regular Fox-not-Sports’ local network affiliates.
The first in a four-part series about Nevada Gaming wrangling with a new era of poker regulation as Harrah’s and PokerStars fight …
The inaugural NAPT-Venetian was by most accounts a smashing success. PokerStars announced the tournament in January, and less than six weeks later — at a time when big-money players usually would be heading to California for the WPT-Commerce — 872 entrants made it to the Venetian for a televised $5k main event in Las Vegas.
(The February event, and others from the fledgling North American Poker Tour, are currently airing on ESPN-2 and TSN, the leading sports television channel in Canada.)
But it wasn’t the field size, TV cameras, or $4.1 million prize pool that made the NAPT-Venetian special … it was that the Las Vegas tournament was “presented by PokerStars”. Dot net.
Perhaps surprisingly, because we see so much PokerStars on TV … this was the first time since the UIGEA that a licensed Nevada casino partnered with PokerStars (or any site like it) for a major open tournament.
Its success didn’t go unnoticed. And that may prove to be the problem for PokerStars and the North American Poker Tour, as the inaugural NAPT-Venetian will probably — almost certainly — be the last.
A poker show for the hardcore fan, with a touch of game-show whammy thrown in. To be seen on Fox Sports. That’s the word coming from Daniel Negreanu:
Buy in: $100,000 minimum $500,000 maximum
Blinds: $200-$400 with a $100 ante (the button will ante for the table)
Format: 6 handed (occasionally that may change) pot limit betting before the flop, no limit hold’em after the flop.
The Twist: One of the six players at the table will be an online qualifier, “The Loose Cannon,” who’ll get a chance to sit in the game with $100,000… and it’s a freeroll! Well, not entirely. The Loose Cannon must play the full session, and he can keep anything that he wins. If he loses, say $500 or $50,000, he gets nada.
