Top of the poker pops site Party Poker ran the largest World Poker
Tour event yet last week on a player's cruise along the Mexican Riviera.
Aboard the luxury vessel MS Ryndam, online tournament qualifier Erick
Lindgren took home the title and the $1,000,000 first prize in poker’s
most unique event, the PartyPoker.Com Million III, a tournament whose
players begin in cyberspace and finish on the high seas.
Battling five other opponents at the World Poker Tour televised final
table (the show will air June 16, 2004), Lindgren stormed back from
a fourth place chip position at one point and overtook the day’s
starting chip leader and eventual third place finisher, fellow online
qualifier Chris Hinchcliffe, a construction worker from Olympia, Washington
who said the money would "change his life.”
PartyPoker.com claims to be the world’s largest online poker
room, with over 45,000 simultaneous players from all over the world
at peak time, everyday.
Poker cruises are not an entirely new phenomenon but on this one,
everybody on the ship was either a player or a player’s friend
or family member.
The Ryndam departed from San Diego harbor carrying 546 players and
roughly 750 companions, with the only non-poker related people on
board being the ship’s crew.
Most of the players won their entry fee and cruise package by playing
online poker satellites, where players won both a cruise and entry
into the $7,500 buy-in tournament for as little as $25.
One player actually made it on board for $2, encouraged by having won
her second try at $1 tournaments that were offered briefly earlier
in the year. Ninety players took home at least a couple of thousand
dollars in extra prize money, although the lion’s share was
reserved for those making the final table.
Runner-up Daniel Negreanu, a Canadian poker player, took home $675,000
and a $25,000 entry into the World Poker Tour’s Championship
Event in Las Vegas in April.
Winner Lindgren, 27, is a “famous” Internet player for
his success under his Internet alter ego “Edawg.” After
he accepted his trophy, he noted that while he plays both Internet
and land-based poker, “There is no doubt that I learned the
technical side of the game, how to bet correctly, playing on the Internet.”
PartyPoker.com dwarfs its land- based competitors. The world’s
largest land-based poker room can accommodate a couple of thousand
players. PartyPoker.com regularly hosts twenty times that number,
and given the rapidly increasing stature of poker on the world’s
stage (noted actor/director James Woods was one of the more famous
players to enter the PartyPoker.com Million III), there appears to
be no limit to where online poker can go.
PartyPoker.com is fully licensed and regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming
Commission, Quebec, Canada. The site typically hosts more than 45,000
simultaneous players playing an assortment of live classic poker games
including Texas Hold `Em, Omaha Hi/Low, and Seven Card Stud and single
and multi table tournaments.
PartyPoker.com is where many new enthusiasts begin their poker lessons,
playing for FREE, and then progressing to tournaments like The PartyPoker.com
Million.