Niagara Falls Warms Up For WPT Event With Celebrity Tournament
Thousands upon thousands of newlyweds have celebrated their Honeymoons in the Niagara Falls area. Next month, when the World Poker Tour comes to town, the Honeymoon will definitely be over for top local poker players.
Former Miami Dolphins quarterback, and current network football analyst Dan Marino hosted a celebrity poker tournament at the Niagara Fallsview Casino, which is preparing for the WPT's first ever Canadian stop, starting on October 25th.
Joining Marino on the felt were other former NFL quarterbacks Jim McMahon, Mark Rypien, NHL Legends Stan Makita, and Grant Fuhr, and many others. Fuhr was the highest placing celebrity finisher, taking seventh place. Neither Marino, nor any of the other celebrities even came close to the final table, but a good time was had by all, and the poker room got a taste of a poker tournament with high profile players.
The World Poker Tour event at Fallsview is a bit of a departure from the normal WPT event. Generally, events like The L.A. Poker Classic, or the Paris event have preliminary tournaments leading up to the WPT Main Event, which is usually a $10,000 event.
The Fallsview event has only two tournaments in all. On October 22-24, the casino is hosting the WPT Canadian Open. This $2,500 buy in tournament will be open to ALL players, not just Canadian Citizens, and the smaller buy in should bring in a decent sized field.
Then, on October 25th, the big boys (and girls) take over the poker room for the $10,000 buy in North American Poker Championship. Poker Fans may remember the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championships at Bellagio. The Brunson event was not part of the season five WPT mix, so the Niagara tournament has taken the name over, minus Brunson's name of course.
This tournament will be a real test of the WPT brand, as it is the first WPT tournament in North America that is not in a major poker/casino hotbed, or major city, and does not have an online poker room feeding entrants into the event to build the prize pool.
The Dan Marino event went off without a hitch, and locals are hoping for more of the same when cards go in the air next month next to one of the biggest waterfall in the world.
Ed note: You won't go over a waterfall in a barrel when you play at Doyle's Room
