Jeff Haney is betting that an upcoming two-week tournament will return Binion’s to prominence on professional poker tour

Wednesday, May 3, 2006 | 7:42 a.m.

The American Poker Player Championship has yet to see its first bluff, burn card or bad beat.

But organizers have ambitious plans for the 14-day tournament, which debuts next week at Binion's downtown.

"We plan on turning this into the second-largest event in poker," said Cary Davis, president of Las Vegas-based Omni Media & Entertainment, which owns the tournament and will present it in conjunction with Binion's.

That would be second behind only the venerable World Series of Poker, which was long associated with springtime at Binion's but now takes place in the summer at the Rio.

"The idea is to plug the hole where the World Series of Poker was," Davis said. "We see this becoming an annual tournament, fitting into the slot where the World Series of Poker used to be, which was April into May."

The first American Poker Player Championship will consist of 29 tournaments from May 10 through May 24, capped by the main event: a $5,000 buy in, no-limit Texas hold 'em contest that begins May 22. The championship will be filmed for broadcast, with details on a TV deal to be announced.

Entry fees for most of the other events range from $100 to $500, including a no-limit hold 'em tournament for women only on May 21.

Davis arrived in Las Vegas in 1972 to work in the poker room at the Golden Nugget and served as a shift boss at the World Series of Poker from 1976 to 1978. He left for the realm of business and finance but returned to poker when it surged in popularity in recent years.

"We're trying to do a lot of the things that made the original World Series so popular," Davis, 57, said.

That includes holding special events such as a golf tournament for poker players set for May 17 at Las Vegas National Golf Club ($300, limited to 144 players, prizes to be awarded).

Jim Delorto, director of poker for Binion's, will oversee the tournament. The tournament will be hosted by a pair of poker pros - Tom McEvoy, the 1983 World Series main-event champion, and Susie Isaacs, who won the World Series women's championship in 1996 and 1997.

Davis expects each of the individual tournaments - which will be limited to a maximum of 800 entrants - to attract touring pros as well as Las Vegas-based poker players.

"The local group of poker players here can really make or break an event," Davis said. "I think they'll make it a tremendous tournament."

Wynn Las Vegas will launch its first major poker tournament next year, with 13 events running from Feb. 19 through early March.

Buy ins will range from about $500 through $3,000 for preliminary tournaments leading to a no-limit Texas hold 'em championship that will carry a $10,000 entry fee.

Other games featured will be limit hold 'em, pot-limit hold 'em, Omaha and a mixed-games event, according to Deborah Giardina, director of poker room operations at Wynn.

The tournament is scheduled to take place in the poker room, said John Strzemp, chief financial officer of Wynn Resorts and the 1997 World Series of Poker runner-up.

When the World Poker Tour begins its fifth season later this month with the Mirage Poker Showdown, the tournament's final table will be played on a new, technologically updated stage set, World Poker founder Steve Lipscomb said at the recent World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio.

Fan-friendly plasma-screen TVs are expected to be featured on the new set, which replaces the one that had been used in the first four seasons of the lucrative, made-for-TV World Poker Tour.

The first two tournaments of World Poker's fifth season will take place in Las Vegas - the Mirage event (May 14-17) followed by the inaugural Mandalay Bay Poker Championship (June 4-8).