POKER BLOGGERS THIRD ANNUAL HOLIDAY CLASSIC

Congratulations to -EV for his win in the Third Annual Poker Bloggers Holiday Classic at Caesars Palace!

A big poker weekend here in Las Vegas. The Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio has all the poker pros in residence; the National Finals Rodeo brings along a large poker friendly crowd; and the city is filled with a gross of poker bloggers. The most influential digital poker scribes to be found on the planet. The collective works of this bunch of poker historians will define in great detail the digital origin of poker as the world’s greatest gameboard.

Saturday evening the bloggers gathered in a ballroom at the Imperial Palace to try out the new Poker Pro digital, dealer-less poker table. Two versions of this hybrid poker table were available for play, a standard 10 player table plus a two player heads-up version. Most comments I heard believed the digital tables will be an instant hit with the now displaced Internet players making the transition to B&M; casino poker. They are already comfortable playing poker through a digital interface. It will be a harder sell to the live casino poker players that can’t seem to do without the feel of cards and chips. A dealer-less poker table will not find a place with many, they want a live dealer at the table to deal the cards and run the game.

I am not alone in believing the two player heads-up version will probably be the big success story. It will be the perfect fit for smaller clubs and bars, yet it will have a place in casino poker rooms. Heads-up poker can be mass marketed with the prohibitive expense of a dealer dropped out of the equation. Both versions of the digital Poker Pro tables use the same player interface so playing the heads-up version will provide new players with a comfort zone to easily move up to the regular 10 seat version.