Jeff Haney cuts the cards with the latest millionaire produced by the World Poker Tour

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

The World Poker Tour launched its new season with a sleek new stage set - more black and chrome, less red and blue - and a new face in the winner's circle last week at the Mirage.

Stan Weiss, a 59-year-old sales professional from Nashville, outlasted a field of 384 entrants in the Mirage Poker Showdown to become the first winner in Season 5 of World Poker, the lucrative made-for-TV tour that airs on the Travel Channel (Cox cable channel 66).

Viewers will have a long wait to catch Weiss' victory on TV, as Season 5 tournaments won't begin airing until next spring. (Season 4 events are being shown through June 28, followed by the Professional Poker Tour, a new series sponsored by World Poker.)

But that's fine with Weiss, who sometimes plays big tournaments in the South and Midwest but values his relative anonymity among top Las Vegas pros.

Weiss, who earned the tournament's top prize of $1.3 million, said he used his unknown status to his strategic advantage throughout the tournament. Sometimes he'd just call when the situation would seem to call for a raise, he said. Other times, he'd put all of his chips at risk and force his opponent to make a big decision. On still other occasions, he'd let a more aggressive foe bluff off part of his stack.

He'd never allow his opponents to be sure just where he stood, Weiss said Wednesday night at the Mirage.

"That was the plan," he said. "They don't know how I play, so let them guess."

Weiss also refused to get caught up in the mind-set, popular among today's young, hyper-aggressive players, that he had to defend his blinds at all costs.

"I wasn't going to defend the honor of my blinds, because they usually didn't have any," he said.

The tournament's final hand was also one of its most memorable. After a long and grueling heads-up tussle against Harry Demetriou, a pro player from London, Weiss got all the chips in holding king-5 against Demetriou's king-6. The flop showed a jack, nine and seven, giving Demetriou a big lead. The turn card was a three, but another five hit on the river to give Weiss the win.

"How could I be disappointed?" said Demetriou, who collected more than $673,000 of the total prize pool of $3.7 million for finishing second. "I came into the final table fifth (in chip count) and gave myself a good shot at winning. Stan deserved to win."

Las Vegas resident Gavin Smith was honored as World Poker's player of the year for Season 4 before the beginning of play at the final table at the Mirage.

Smith won his first major tournament at last year's Mirage Poker Showdown, earning $1.1 million.

Smith, who placed third in the Doyle Brunson North American Challenge at the Bellagio in October, finished Season 4 of the tour with 2,100 points in the player of the year race, beating runner-up Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi by 400 points. Players are awarded 1,000 points for a victory, 700 for second, 600 for third, 500 for fourth, 400 for fifth, 300 for sixth and 200 for seventh.

Smith was awarded a Gevril watch worth $6,995.

Previous winners of the World Poker player of the year award were Howard Lederer in Season 1, Erick Lindgren in Season 2 and Daniel Negreanu in Season 3.

The fledgling National Poker League is scheduled to begin its inaugural season with the Vegas Open tournament on June 2 at the Caesars Palace poker room.

The series has a unique format, consisting of 10 separate, $1,060 buy-in tournaments that are open to the public. The winner of each advances to a semifinal heads-up round, and the five heads-up winners advance to the final table, where they will vie for $100,000 in bonus cash that's added to the prize pool.

Each stage of the tournament will offer prize money and will be televised on In Demand's INHD Network, which is devoted exclusively to high-definition programming.

Commentary will be provided by Oliver Nejad, master of ceremonies for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesars, and Scott Fischman, the youngest player to win back-to-back World Series of Poker bracelets.