2005 WPBT WINTER CLASSIC FROM THE IMPERIAL PALACE, LAS VEGAS

Welcome Poker Bloggers to the 2005 WPBT Winter Classic.

The WPBT Winter tournament is under way at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. The welcome introductions begin at 9:30AM and in order of appearance we heard from Tournament organizer Bill Rini, IP Poker Room Manager Mike Fay, Professional Poker Player Barry Greenstein, writer and poker pro Charlie Shoten, Austin Blogger Amy Calistra and author Michael Craig-The Professor The Banker & The Suicide King. The cards went into the air a few minutes before Noon in the $50 buy-in No-limit Hold’em . A capacity crowd filled the available 100 seats and seven of the alternates made it into the contest. Poker Stars provideed plenty of give aways and added a couple of thousand to the prize pool, a rare poker tournament overlay.

The room is crowded with more than one hundred of poker blogging heavy weights. Looking around the tables are Wil Wheaton, the Poker Prof, Iggy, Dr. Pauly and his brother Derrick , Hank Hdouble, Amy Calistra, Mr. and Mrs. Al Can’t Hang, our own April (Week in review), and many, many more. We will provide a mini photo gallery of the event.

We have the winner of the fast draw award, Tanya ‘Miss T74.’ Tanya has the honor of being the first player to be eliminated and for this dubious honor she received the Dr. Pauly ‘Gigli’ video. Many thanks to the poker room staff and especially Mike Fay for hosting the unruly crowd of scribes. Oh yea, the open bar ran out of SoCo rather early and had to get an emergency delivery of that liquid tribute to all those Southern Greek Planter Estates. More from this event later today.