POKER
players from across the globe will descend on a
Sheffield casino to battle it out for one of the
biggest prizes in the game.
Up to
60 Texas Holdem players will be at Napoleons Owlerton
Casino next month trying to gain automatic entry into
the game's World Championships in Las Vegas.
The casino, beside Owlerton Stadium, has already beat
off regional competition to land one of the most hotly
contested events at the forthcoming World Firefighters
Games 2004 – the World Firefighters Poker Tournament.
The rise of poker has been driven by high-profile
televised tournaments and is now shown on five
different channels. It is also widely available on the
internet.
Pit boss Craig Wicks – who has worked for Napoleons
Casinos for 10 years - had the idea for the venue's
first
Texas
Holdem
poker
tournament and is working hard to prepare for the
World Firefighters Poker Tournament.
"Landing this event has been a massive boost for
Napoleons Casino Owlerton," he said.
"We've spent over two years developing the venue as a
world class venue for poker and it's great to see our
hard work paying off. We are committed to demistifying
poker and opening it up to a wider audience and
showing it has a fun as well as a serious competition
side – next month's event won't be played for money,
firefighters will be competing for medals and the top
prize of an expenses-paid trip to compete in the World
Championships in Las Vegas courtesy of poker.com."
Napoleon's is no stranger to being in the spotlight –
it now holds four festivals a year and two tournaments
a week, a total of 108 events a year. Prize money for
the last night of its recent three-day festivals was
£98,600.
World Firefighters Games 2004 co-ordinator Simon Athey
said: "Napoleons Owlerton Casino has a brilliant
reputation for staging high-profile and professionally
managed poker tournaments."
High-rolling poker champions from the television
screens are regulars at the venue. They include Dave
'Devil Fish' Ulliot who won the World Poker Open two
years ago and walked away with $589, 175, Peter 'The
Bandit' Evans, Korosh, Padraig Parkinson and Kevin
O'Connel.
The five-hour World Firefighters Poker Tournament
takes place on September 3 from 2pm to 7pm.
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