Poker Dome Challenge
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The MANSIONPoker.net Poker Dome Challenge is a 43-week series of speed poker tournaments offering a grand prize of $1,000,000 USD. The tournament airs in the United States on Fox Sports Network, with the first episode running on May 28, 2006. The tournament features a number of technological gimmicks in an effort to increase viewer interest and excitement. Commentating duties are shared by Barry Tompkins, Jon Kelley and Michael Konik, with Leeann Tweeden serving as co-host/exit interviewer. Michael Gracz, Joel Meyers and Chris Rose have guest-commentated. Matt Savage is the tournament director.
The series consists of single table tournaments of six players each. Competitors qualify through daily freeroll tournaments held at mansionpoker.net. Winners of the online qualifiers are flown all expenses paid to Las Vegas, Nevada and receive $500 in casino credit and other amenities.
Players start with $50,000 in tournament chips and play until one player has all $300,000. The tournament is single-elimination and only the winner of each table receives prize money. Players have just 15 seconds to act on a hand before it is ruled dead. Each player is given one 30-second time extension that may be used at any time. When the table gets heads-up, each player receives another 30-second time extension (although if a player hasn't previously used the extension he or she does not then have two). Betting is pot-limit pre-flop and no-limit post-flop until heads-up play, when it becomes all no-limit.
Each preliminary winner pockets $25,000 in cash and advances to the semi-finals. After each set of six preliminary tournaments, a semi-final single table tournament is played among the six winners, with the winner of that table taking $50,000 and advancing to the final table. After the six semi-final matches are played, the finalists play one more single table tournament for the $1,000,000 winner-take-all grand prize. Each of the other finalists wins a prize package from Mansion Poker worth $13,000.
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[edit] The Poker Dome
Tournaments are played in front of a live audience in a structure called The Poker Dome. The audience can't be seen or heard by the players and players are screened before entering the Dome to ensure they are unable to communicate with anyone outside the Dome. The high tech table features an LED display for the dealer button, hole card cameras, automatic card reading technology (possibly passive RFID tags) and built in LED hand timers. Two dealers work the tournaments to maintain the fast pace and players are attached to heart monitors. Players' hole cards and heart rates are displayed for the live audience and in particularly stressful situations like all in bets, heart rates are displayed to the home audience.
The Tropicana Resort & Casino hosted the first several events prior to the completion of construction at the Neonopolis.
[edit] Tournament Results
| Round | Winner | Hometown | Round | Winner | Hometown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preliminary 1 | Rhowena Colclough | Birmingham, UK | Preliminary 7 | Reg Brittain | Northampton, MA |
| Preliminary 2 | Andrew Rogers | Montgomery, MN | Preliminary 8 | Neil Jones | Mankato, MN |
| Preliminary 3 | John Bowman | Surrey, UK | Preliminary 9 | Rodel Tuazon | Des Moines, IA |
| Preliminary 4 | Marissa Chien | Las Vegas, NV | Preliminary 10 | Stan Poczatek | Woodbridge, VA |
| Preliminary 5 | John Woods | Abbey, UK | Preliminary 11 | Ed Betzel | Fraser, MI |
| Preliminary 6 | Robert Brown | Shawassee, MI | Preliminary 12 | Rick Berger | Melbourne, FL |
| Semi-final 1 | Andrew Rogers | Semi-final 2 | Rodel Tuazon | ||
| Preliminary 13 | Gagan Virk | Sylmar, CA | Preliminary 19 | D.K. Thomas | San Pedro, CA |
| Preliminary 14 | Jason Martyn | Ipswich, UK | Preliminary 20 | Victoria Wale | Princes Risborough, UK |
| Preliminary 15 | Jerry Schrader | Woodbridge, VA | Preliminary 21 | Bruce Spencer | Pensacola, FL |
| Preliminary 16 | Bill Sheldon | Cape May, NJ | Preliminary 22 | Walter Graden | Statham, GA |
| Preliminary 17 | Jon Davies | Albrighton, UK | Preliminary 23 | Ben Ludwig | Collegeville, PA |
| Preliminary 18 | Marlon Delinois | Spring Valley, NY | Preliminary 24 | Steve Goodemote | Canandaigua, NY |
| Semi-final 3 | Jerry Schrader | Semi-final 4 | Ben Ludwig | ||
| Preliminary 25 | Kristian Gilleland | Conway, SC | Preliminary 31 | ||
| Preliminary 26 | Preliminary 32 | ||||
| Preliminary 27 | Preliminary 33 | ||||
| Preliminary 28 | Preliminary 34 | ||||
| Preliminary 29 | Preliminary 35 | ||||
| Preliminary 30 | Preliminary 36 | ||||
| Semi-final 5 | Semi-final 6 |
[edit] Trivia
- Television presenter and semi-finalist Rhowena Colclough is married to professional poker player Dave Colclough.
- Professional poker players Tony G and Perry Friedman and reality television personality Rob Mariano have appeared in the Dome.
[edit] World Pro-Am Challenge
On July 12, 2006, The Poker Dome played host to the World Pro-Am Challenge, with a $1,000,000 USD prize pool. Three professional players were pitted against three amateur online qualifiers, who had access to three other pros for coaching. The top three spots paid, and if an amateur cashed the prize money would be split with the coach. Each amateur started with $20,000 more in chips than the pros and each amateur/coach team was allowed two time outs, one called by the player and one by the coach.
| Position | Player | Hometown | Coach | Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gavin Smith | Guelph, Ontario | $500,000 | |
| 2 | Scott Gardner | Spalding, UK | Michael Gracz | $270,000 ($30,000 to Gracz) |
| 3 | John Gale | Bushey, UK | $200,000 | |
| 4 | Todd Brunson | Las Vegas, NV | $0 | |
| 5 | Joe Isaacson | Eau Claire, WI | Kenna James | $0 |
| 6 | Andy Stoll | Cincinnati, OH | Tony G | $0 |
