This Saturday is the TPT Winter Championship being held at Fanatics in Johnson City. Start time will be noon and the qualifying average will be 50. The prize pool for this torunament is $1,500. There will be a buffet lunch after the first break. For games played this week, you will have the option of applying your scores to the current session or to next session if you’re already qualified. Come out and join us this week if you don’t have your minimum eight games in as there are still a number of people who can qualify for this tournament and take home some Christmas Cash!

Sign up now for the first ever Morristown Freeroll!!!

The management at Planet Wings in Morristown have sponsored a Tennessee Poker Championship Series event on August 6th, 2011.  The Motown Freeroll will start at noon.  There will be a top prize of $500 and many other prizes throughout the day.

Poker players will be able to enjoy ONE DOLLAR DRAFT BEER all day!!!  Along with a pig roast and other great food.

The event is free to all Tennessee Poker Tour members, but to play you must sign up (click the banner on the home page, and sign up with your name and member number).  Only the first 100 players to sign up will be able to participate, so sign up soon.  Please do not sign up more than once, or you may be deleted by the system.

This is going to be a fun day of poker for all.  Thank you to Planet Wings management for their generous support in making this happen.

No stranger to the final table, Dan Kublawi recently walked away with the Summer Championship, and as owner/CEO of the TPT has kindly donated his winnings to the prize pool of the next tournament, which should be a nice pay day for the winner.

Congratulations to Dan on a great achievement, and to the others who made the final table.  Here is Dan’s report from our Facebook page:

A big thanks to all who came out for the tournament yesterday and another big thanks to the staff of Fanatics for taking good care of everyone. Good news for the next tournament in September! I will again be putting my prize money back into the pool for the next tournament. In addition, we will be having a free roll tournament at Planet Wings, our Morristown location, later this summer. Stay tuned for details. Below is the final table order of finish:

6th- Howard Dowell
5th-Brent Dexter
4th-Jeff Franklin
3rd-Gabe Harrison
2nd- Josh Brown
1st- Dan Kublawi

I just noticed that our hit counter slipped over the 300,000 page view mark in late March, 2011.

For a small regional poker league web site, that’s pretty impressive, and by far the highest traffic of any poker league in the area.

Always nice to be #1!  Thanks for your support.

Laura Grant was the winner of the Spring Fling tournament. Former tournament winners Mike Miskus and Ron Helsabeck also made appearances at the final table along with local favorite Ron Schultz and two of our new players from our Morristown location, Nick Lawson and Shane “Pantene” Over. It was a great day for poker and the largest tournament in some time for the TPCS. We’d like to thank all of the Morristown folks for coming out and helping to make this a great tournament. The next tournament will be held in late June. Stay tuned for the exact date and location. I big thanks to all who came out and supported the tour!

For those of you that don’t know, there has been a changed to the league schedule beginning next week.  Please take a look at the new schedule here.

Please let your friends know, so they don’t show up in the wrong place or on the wrong night!

Just a quick note to let you all know that the Tournament of Champions results and pictures are now online here.

Wish I could have been there to play personally, looked like fun.

If anyone in the TPT is still using Myspace, you will notice that we have deleted our Myspace account.  It is pretty clear that Facebook is by far the dominant force in social media, and it is simply not viable to maintain a presence on Myspace.

If you would like to receive exclusive updates and information about the Tennessee Poker Tour, please search for us on Facebook.

1. Chris Healey
2. Eric Miller
3. Ernie Dunn
4. Richard Keen
5. Caroline Hurt
6. Kenny Ingram
7. Landon Maupin
8. Ty Henry
9. Todd Tipton
10. Ron Helsabeck
11. Gabe Harrison
12. Ron Schultz
13. Rick Minnick
14. Mary Kublawi
15. Kevin Anderson
16. Mike Miskus
17. Trazel Silvers
18. Shaun Julian
19. Rich Petit
20. Angie Tipton
21. Justin Lester
22. Gail Arrants
23. Michael Hicks
24. Kevin Winsch
25. Curtis Williams
26. James Ovington
27. Dan Kublawi
28. Skip Dockery
29. Jeff Bolling
30. Brent Dexter
31. Dan Hurt
32. Major Bordeaux
33. Max Finch
34. Matt Wandel
35. Josh Stevens
36. Jason Little
37. Jason Frederickson
38. Steve Roberts
39. Rich Wagner
40. Chad Whitson
41. Chuck Hupchick
42. Amy Carrier
43. Ravi Patel
44. Jeff McHugh
45. Charlie Bennett
46. Joe Rosenbalm
47. Brian Scyphers
48. Hank Middleton

Dan Kublawi was crowned champion of the Bad Santa Invitational on Sunday December 19 at Bailey’s. After starting the final table with the chip lead, he outlasted many familiar faces at the final table to take down the top prize. As owner of the TPT, Dan will be donating his winnings towards the next tournament to be held in March. This will double the top prize! Shawn Dugger finished 2nd, followed by Ty Henry in 3rd, Rich Wagner in 4th, Gail Arrants in 5th, and Jim Rhinehart in 6th. Congratulations to all who made the final table and thanks to all who made this a great tournament.

Pictures now available here.

The Bad Santa Invitational Tournament will be held at Bailey’s sports bar in Johnson City on Sunday, December 19th. Start time will be noon and there will be no free roll qualifiers for this tournament. The prize pool will be $2000 and will pay the top 6 players. All players with a qualifying average of 50 and at least 8 games played in the current session are invited to play in this tournament. Players are encouraged to dress for the season for this tournament. We look forward to seeing you there!

As promised we have some pictures from the last tournament here.

Also check out the updated Hall of Fame.  Congratulations to those elite players who have made it in there more than once!

The Free Fall tournament is now over with a lot of familiar faces making the final table.

Congratulations to James Ovington, the first ever member of the TPT (his member number is 100!), who took down his first tournament.  Clearly he’s learned more than just dealing during his career.

Gail Arrants proved once again she is no stranger to final table finishes, although couldn’t quite beat her own record by winning a third tournament.  Let’s face it though, making five final tables in the last eight tournaments isn’t a fluke!

The official top six looked like this:

1. James Ovington
2. Gail Arrants
3. Richard Wagner
4. André Bordeaux (Also had the highest average this session)
5. Rebecca Carr
6. Ravi Patel

We’ll be adding pictures and other information in about a week.  Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to all who participated, including our friends at Fanatics who once again took great care of us.

The Free Fall tournament is scheduled for Saturday, September 25 at Fanatics. Players with an average of 50 or higher for the current session are invited. Start time will be noon (12pm). Scores are updated. Hope you qualified. Good luck to all !

As some of you already know, Colonial Downs has ceased most business operations in South Virginia, shutting down the bar, restaurant, and other facilities at this location.

As a result of this change, there is no longer any poker available there, although they do still offer horse race betting in the lobby.

Poker has returned to Colonial Downs every Friday night. There are 2 free tournaments each week, at 7:00pm and 9:30pm and you can enter both. The winner of each tournament wins a $25 betting voucher and is automatically entered into the Grand Tournament scheduled for the end of September where much larger prizes are awarded. The games are administered by the TPT. Come out and enjoy some free poker and maybe win some money betting the horses!