Chamber holds winning hand with poker tournament

>Chad Lewis of Madison, top right, won the Texas Hold ’Em tournament sponsored by the Madison Area Chamber of commerce. The prize is a trip to Las Vegas to compete in the World Series of Poker. (Staff photos by John Palmer Gregg)

Chamber holds winning hand with poker tournament

>By: Peggy Vlerebome
>Courier Staff Writer

>A pair of 9s at the end of seven and a half hours of Texas Hold ’Em won Madison attorney Chad Lewis a trip to Las Vegas to play big-time poker. He won the Madison Area Chamber of Commerce’s Texas Hold ’Em tournament Saturday, a fund-raiser for the chamber.

“I had a great time,” Lewis said. “It was a lot of fun. I’ll come back next year.”

Lewis, a member of the Chamber board of directors, had helped organize the tournament.

His prizes were the $10,000 entry fee for the World Series of Poker and a $2,000 travel gift certificate. His trip to Vegas probably will be in June.

Three hundred people paid $100 each to play in the tournament. Nine people who had signed up and paid a $25 deposit didn’t show up, so nine people on a waiting list of 35 to 40 got to pay $100 and join the tournament.

People who didn’t sign up before the 300 places were sold were said to offer up to $250 to take the places of players arriving at the Madison Township Volunteer Fire Department firehouse for the tournament Saturday afternoon.

The nine other men who had made it to the final table from the field of 300 shared cash. Their prizes ranged from $2,888 for second place to $368 for tenth place.

One by one the men at the final table lost and left to the applause of those remaining. Less than two minutes after only Lewis and Steve McAlister of Rising Sun were the last two players, it was all over.

“I had a pair of 9s,” Lewis said. “I think he had a 5 and 6 of hearts. I went all-in and he called, and my 9s won it. His hand never held up.”

Third place was won by Glenn Bovard of Rising Sun. The others in the top 10 were Robert Taylor of North Vernon, fourth; John Crawley of Madison, fifth; Victor Sarkan of Madison, sixth; Terry Stone of Milan, seventh; Kevin Kaufman of northern Kentucky, eighth; Don Poling of Madison, ninth; and Lonnie Baker of Milton, Ky., tenth.

When Lewis won, he had all of the $300,000 worth of chips that had started the day divided among the 300 players. When each player registered coming in, he or she was given $1,000 worth of chips. But since this was a charity event, he didn’t get to cash in the chips.

Most of the 300 who entered the tournament were men. The last woman made it to 15th place out of the 300.

“I didn’t know I was this good,” said Gail Ackerman of Louisville, Ky., as she watched the remaining players compete. “I’m happy.” She has been playing for only about five months.

Lewis could have chosen to take $7,500 in cash instead of the trip to Vegas, so a day full of strategy decisions wasn’t over until he announced his choice after having seven minutes to think it over.

If he had chosen the cash prize, the other nine competitors would have each received more money, so he was under some pressure to take the cash instead of the trip. Other players offered him some of their cash if he chose the cash option.

The Chamber of Commerce had bought a charity gaming license from the state in order to have a legal gambling operation.

The Chamber will get what remains after expenses, including a charity donation to the United Way and to the Chi Omega sorority and Sigma Chi fraternity at Hanover College, which provided volunteers to be dealers. Jake Nance, a junior from Evansville majoring in economics, was the dealer when all the others tables consolidated into one tableful of the final 10 players.

A couple of hours after the tournament started, a second game began in the back of the firehall. For that game, people who had lost out at the tournament could pay $50 each to play in a side tournament. About 90 joined that group. At the very back of the hall, people who didn’t have to pay an entry fee could buy poker chips and play for cash. About 50 people played in that area.

Texas Hold ’Em has swept the nation and the Courierarea. The game has been around for several years — Nance said he has been playing it since he was in high school — but took off as a phenomenon when televised poker games began featuring Texas Hold ’Em. It took off locally after the Prince of Peace Parish had a Texas Hold ’Em tent at its festival last year, Chamber officials said.

Several of the players Saturday said they play regularly at Caesars Indiana riverboat casino near New Albany, but most said they play with friends at each other’s houses or at taverns and other locales where large groups get together. One such venue in Seymour, where players from Madison and Scottsburg regularly played, was closed down by the state last week because it was just a gambling hall, not having the sanction of legality gained by obtaining a license from the state and sharing the proceeds with charities. Only qualified nonprofit organizations can get gaming licenses from the Department of Revenue.