Heard it on the River

Here is another blackjack tournament but with a twist. It's just for casino employees. LYNDA HENSON, director of table games at SHERATON , tells us that the casino is betting $5,000 that it will be a hit with casino employees. That is the prize money for the event to be held on Oct. 23rd from 7-10 p.m. Just show your valid ID card and you are eligible, no buy in. If you work for PARK PLACE ENTERTAINMENT, however, you are not eligible. There will be three rounds of 20 hands with seven,including a wild card, making it through to the final table where $2,500 is the top prize and second place pays $1,200. Third is good for $600, 4th for $300, 5th pays $200, 6th goes for $125 and 7th is $75. After the tournament there will be bonus prize drawings. There is room for 156 players and to enter call the tournament hot line at 1-662-363-4579.

GRAND is holding the 12th Seniors World Championship Oct. 9-17 and Texas Hold'em will dominate the agenda. CHRIS MONEYMAKER, who took home $2.5 million to Spring Hill, TN from the last WORLD SERIES OF POKER, is expected to be on hand. At the Seniors Hall of Fame dinner on the 9th, SPIKE GALLOWS and WILFORD BRIMLEY will be inducted. All the TV attention on Texas Hold 'em has gotten my attention. I'm reading books on the game, watching closely how they play on TV (where some big mistakes are made on the final table by top players) and now practicing on the internet. It will be some time, however, before I am ready to show my stuff against the sharks in our local poker rooms. I got a feeling that thousands of others are on the same course.

Hats off to HARRAH'S for donating a $37,000 delivery van to Meals on Wheels. They even got NASCAR driver LARRY FOYT to deliver meals to some local seniors in his Dodge Intrepid race car. The Tunica truck is the 17th vehicle that Harrah's has donated to Meals on Wheels programs across the country and for that we deliver our coveted "Attaboy Award."

As predicted here recently, FOUR CARD POKER will become a popular game in Tunica Resorts. Grand recently installed it and SHERATON is soon to put in a second table. Sam's Town introduced it and I think it will soon appear in other casinos.

If you don't know what tapas are, check out the happy hour from 6:30 to 8:30 Monday-Friday at GOLDSTRIKES Millennium Theatre bar on the second floor of the casino. Popular in Vegas and New York, tapas are bite-size culinary creations from cured meat, garlic marinated shrimp, cheeses and veggies that go great with wine. LUCIO ARANCIBIA, director of F&B, somewhat biased to things Spanish, says the idea is unique to the area. OLE.

She is coming baaack…TONYA HARDING is stepping back into the ring on Oct. 25 at SAM'S TOWN highly popular Saturday Night Fights Series. Tickets are expected to go on sale soon for the OLYMPIC BOXING TRIALS scheduled to be held in Tunica next Feb.

PARK PLACE ENTERTAINMENT has been awarded the 2nd Annual Larry Cole Award for Excellence in Innovation in Gaming Technology for aggressively implementing cashless technology.

FROM THE QUOTABLE GAMBLER, The Lyons Press
"I hit an unlucky streak, and we had to move to less expensive quarters. Things went from bad to worse and I found myself telling her night after night the same old story…'The sucker drew me out.' I came home one night and she wasn't there, and also missing were her clothes and suitcases. All if found was a big printed note on the table. It said: 'Gone with the sucker.'"
Poker Player
Quoted in Alan Downing, The Great American Pastime (1970)

Laissez le bon temps rouler.