National Championship Gives 11 Poker Players Opportunity to Play in WSOP
On Wednesday July 4th at the MGM poker room in Las Vegas 99 poker players from 19 different states tried their luck at becoming the new FPN National Championship. There was a buzz of excitement as the over five foot high National Championship trophy greeted players as they came to register in the poker room. There were a lot of spectators looking and rooting on their husband, wives, and friends.
In the end eleven players from eight different states won a seat into the World Series of Poker Event #59. A big congratulations goes out to:
Janet Casey - Delaware
Paul Larson - North Dakota
Stuart Paulson - North Dakota
Curt Sweir - South Dakota
Troy Menke - Minnesota
Clarence Osentowski - Nebraska
Dennis Hestand - Missouri
Alex Aemisegger - North Dakota
Thomas Root - Minnesota
Doug Warden - Illinois
Don Whitley - New York
After some photo ops those eleven new winners played down to one to see who would be the new FPN National Champion and win the $10,000 Main Event seat. In an over an hour long heads up battle Janet Casey from Delaware was able to defeat Paul Larson from North Dakota becoming the first ever female National Champion!
On Tuesday night as all the players had or were arriving to Las Vegas we had a party in the penthouse suite at hooters. Drinks were flowing and for entertainment we had a chip guessing contest. Rod Lovig (pictured) from Norfolk, NE guessed the closest coming within less than 3,000 of the actual number. Another fun contest we had was a fantasy poker draft for anyone to participate in. They had to select ten players from the National Championship field and the person with the most players in the final eleven won. Coming to Vegas as a spectator for team North Platte, NE Anne Winther correctly guessed four players. Both Anne and Rod each won a $80 buy-in to the nightly MGM tournament.
At the 7pm MGM nightly tournament we overlaid a seat into the Golden Ticket's National Championship to the Free Poker Network player or friend of the league that lasted the longest. We call this our "First Chance" tournament. Gloria Millsop from Warroad, MN was the winner of this and has to plan another trip to Las Vegas in December.
Since there is so much poker some other great stories of players in the league taking some Vegas cash home with them, Frank Casey the husband of National Champion Janet won $800 taking down a tournament. Tim "Skinner" Stockwell from Wadena, MN chopped the MGM 7pm nightly the night before for $1,000. Troy Sattler from Webster, SD did a five way chop in the 10pm Rio deepstack tournament at 7am winning $3,000.