2005 November 04 Poker News, Events and Happenings

The e-mail ad promised local poker aficionados the chance to win a $12,000 purse and a trip to the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut to play for even bigger money. But Wednesday night, city police swarmed a refurbished warehouse in South Baltimore, shut the game down and charged 80 players with illegal gambling. Authorities seized $25,655 in cash, 16,020 poker chips, 141 decks of cards, dozens of parts for illegal gambling machines and boxes of illegal booze. A vice sergeant said the raid was the largest …

If you are in the Wichita, Kansas, area around Thanksgiving time, be sure to visit Old Town, which will be hosting their annual Five-Card Draw Pub Crawl. On the evening of November 23rd, locals and visitors are invited to take a stroll around Old Town Wichita and revel in the festive atmosphere of drink specials, free music. and an offbeat charity poker fundraiser.

Now 81 years old, poker pro Tony Grand has been playing the game at a high level of competition for three decades. Since no-limit Texas hold ‘em bullied its way into the public’s consciousness in the past several years, Grand often finds himself the senior player at a given table — sometimes by about 50 years. But Grand will gladly put his experience on the line against his opponents’ youth, he said. “You got a lot of kids of playing, and some of them are pretty lucky,” Grand of Chatsworth, Calif.

NEW YORK - The scrutiny over Alex Rodriguez’s visits to illegal poker dens has caused some of the city’s gambling hot spots to cash in their chips. A day after the New York Daily News reported Rodriguez had ruffled front-office feathers with the Yankees and Major League Baseball with his poker-playing habits, many of the card parlors have voluntarily shut down. Owners and players fear their underground network has become targeted by cops. “It sucks,” says one disgruntled rounder of the recent rash …

Nov. 3 — PartyGaming Plc, the owner of the PartyPoker Web site, said it may buy Empire Online Ltd. to grab a greater share of the $8.2 billion Internet gaming market as growth slows. Empire’s stock rose as much as 9.1 percent.The proposal is the second for Empire, which helps poker and casino Web sites win business and in September ended talks on a possible takeover by Sportingbet Plc. Empire, which has a market value of about 350 million pounds ($622 million), confirmed the approach today in a …