March 22, 2006
The Borgata Winter Poker Open will be primarily a No-Limit Hold 'Em event. Buy-ins for the pokerparty .com rooms and tournaments will range from $500 to $2,500 and there will be a $500 Limit Event and a $300 Ladies' No-Limit event held during the tournament's twelve day run. Everything will be capped off, of course, by the $9,700 (plus $300) WPT Championship event that will start on January 29th. ESPN has been one of the most aggressive pokerparty networks when it comes to the televised poker world. For some time, albeit on ESPN Classic, poker tournaments were a staple of their broadcasting. When ESPN was able to seize the broadcast rights to the World Series of Poker, among other high profile Poker Party.com tournaments, they became one of the leaders in the pokerparty community. Their influence on poker hasn't stopped on the tube, however.
Through the ESPN Poker Club at espn.com, where people can play online for free at pokerparty .com, they have been able to generate a great deal of interest in the game. Bluff Magazine, which is one of the best of the current crop of magazines on the stands nowadays, is looking to expand its influence on the pokerparty game as well. Thus, the announcement on Tuesday of an alliance between the two seems like a natural outcome. ESPN's Poker Club and Bluff Magazine announced that the magazine will be providing much of the content that can be found at the Club on espn.com. The collaboration of Bluff Magazine's roster of writers, including Marcel Luske, Josh Arieh, Antonio Esfandiari and many others, and the ESPN Poker Club, with writer Steve Rosenbloom, Phil Gordon and Annie Duke (both Gordon and Duke are also Bluff contributors), along with the free online poker at pokerparty com and contests, is a drive towards providing a complete poker destination for many poker party.com fans.
PokerParty has made a name for itself by hiring top-flight poker talent over the last couple of years. While other sites have focused on star power, pokerparty .com has gone after the "everyman" champion like poker's Cinderella-story Chris Moneymaker and the ever-friendly and personable Greg Raymer, both have beaten long odds to capture a World Series of Poker main event bracelet and title. It was interesting, I was just reading the other day about police raiding a home poker game that was being played in a retirement center and, when the press asked the officer in charge why they were raiding the pokerparty game, he basically shrugged his shoulders and couldn't give an answer as to why.
The Game Show Network's 'Poker Royale' series has been, by most accounts, a very entertaining series in pokerparty .com rooms. While several of the shows have featured professionals taking on each other, such as the 'Battle of The Sexes', others have been a little more frivolous, such as the 'Pros vs. Comedians', which provided more comedic moments than strong poker play. The latest battle could be one of the biggest and most combative yet! Premiering Friday, October 7th at 10PM (Eastern Time), GSN brings its latest installment of the Poker Royale series to the television when actor and pokerparty player James Woods and his 'James Woods Gang' take the felt against professional Phil Laak's 'Unabombers'. Up for grabs, in addition to the bragging rights, is $75,000 sin prize money for the winning squad.
