The Amateur Poker League
Poker Karaoke: The Amateur Poker League
How a Kansas Karaoke man’s simple dream turned into a craze that’s set to engulf the nation
Courtesy of Bluff Magazine
Something has been brewing in the Midwest that could be the most important thing to happen to the game of poker since the Internet explosion - and it could soon be coming to a town near you. Every professional sports league in the world started off from humble origins, but few gathered such momentum so early on as the Amateur Poker League.
The new, free and (in most states) completely legal series of poker tournaments started as the simple dream of a Karaoke man from Kansas. Presumably sick and tired of off-key renditions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, poker fan Dave Wallace started staging poker events at a couple of Wichita bars. He quickly caught the eye of Shaun Riley and Kurt McPhail, who had been planning to do the same thing for some time. “So we all got together in January 2004 and started a corporation,“ explains Riley. “Essentially, what we do is replace karaoke with poker as a form of entertainment in bars; and we do it on a wide scale.”
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It’s the project’s broad scope that makes it so exciting. The Amateur Poker Leaguers make it no secret that they want to take the League nationwide, and it seems they have the organisational skills to do it. “Right now we are strongest in Missouri, Kansas and Texas,” says Riley. “We also have events in Colorado, Nebraska, Illinois, Massachusetts and California. We’re looking at about 30,000 active members, and in the last few weeks we’ve been growing by about a thousand members a week.”
With Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Arkansas set to follow soon, could we be witnessing the embryonic stages of the formation of America’s first national poker league?
The local competitions are completely free to enter, which is what keeps the system legal; no real-money gambling is taking place. They are open to everyone and are fun, sociable events, with prizes for all. At bigger tournaments, held through the week, players can accumulate points; the top points-earners can then take part in an ‘Invitation Tournament’ the following Friday, playing for bigger prizes.
From next year, however, the plan is to hold competitions on a regional basis. At the end of the month, the top three hundred to five hundred people (depending on the venue size) will qualify to enter special invitational tourneys. At the end of 2005, regional winners will qualify for a national championship, playing for a seat at the 2006 WSOP.
In some states, even free-roll tournaments for prizes are frowned upon by the authorities, but people-power can change all that. If the Amateur Poker League hits a venue in your town, we urge you to go down and give it your support. You won’t just be attending a fantastic fun social event. You could be making history as part of the first ever free, legal - and totally democratic - national poker league.
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