HeadsUp Entertainment , operators of the Canadian Poker Tour (CPT) and Canadian Poker Player Magazine have finalized an agreement with strategic partner World Poker Showdown and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines to host a Poker Super Cruise on the “Freedom of the Seas” launching March 23, 2011 from Port Canaveral, Florida.

Based on the success of the previous poker cruise held in April of this year, the event is being expanded to 2 weeks sailing first to the Eastern Caribbean and subsequently to the Western Caribbean ports-of-call.

Sounds good to me.

By expanding to a 2 week series, profitability increases substantially as fixed costs of tournament infrastructure are covered in the first week and options for players to accommodate their vacation schedules are expanded.

Sponsorship revenue, tournament fees and cash game rake revenue is expected to exceed $2,000,000 USD over the 2 week period, with net earnings approaching $1,200,000 or $.018/share.

The Company also announces that a major television deal is currently being finalized that will allow for broadcast of the event and allow for sponsorship revenues to increase dramatically from previous events.

Now that sounds even better.

“The expansion of the poker vacation market has become a major focus for the Company as revenues are maximized in this event structure,” commented HeadsUp President and CEO Kelly B. Kellner. “The event earlier this year was testament to a growing demand in the Canadian and international marketplace.”

I love cruising, so if you do too (and love playing poker or watching high stakes poker tournaments), this might be just the thing for you.

You know how I HATE to run pure press releases on this page. I much prefer commenting on events, players, in the world of poker.

But we are talking about the WSOP tour here, folks.

The 6th stop of the WSOP Circuit begins this week when a 24-event schedule of poker tournaments rolls into Council Bluffs, Iowa, at the Horseshoe property on Thursday, February 18 through March 2.

There is plenty of variety and buy-in levels for players to choose from.

Buy-ins range from $235 to the $5,150 Main Event for the ring events. And plenty of other price points are available for daily non-ring events and cash games.

No-Limit Hold’em enthusiasts will find their share of tournaments available, including a 6-handed tournament and a special Ladies-only tournament.

Limit Hold’em, H.O.R.S.E., Omaha 8 or Better, Pot Limit Omaha, and Limit Omaha are all part of this year’s schedule at Horseshoe Council Bluffs.

We’ll keep our eyes out for the results.

Did you see the Final Table, World Series of Poker event on ESPN?

Pretty awesome stuff. Congratulations to Joe Cada, 21, who defeated Darvin Moon,  to become the youngest World Series of Poker Main Event champion in the tournament’s 40-year history.

Cada takes home $8,547,042 and the World Series of Poker Main Event world championship bracelet.

Joe Cada came into the final table with a decisive advantage over his opponent, however about an hour into the heads-up match, Moon’s aggressive play remedied his chip deficiency, even putting him in a commanding lead at one point with 149 million in chips to Cada’s 49 million.

“Well you got to take the man’s game away from him,” said Moon of his aggressive strategy.  “Use the man’s game and see where he goes.”

However all was not lost for the young poker pro from Shelby Township, MI.

A bit of light shone for Cada after a river gave him a straight and a hefty 20 million in chips.

Then, back in the driver’s seat, Cada never looked back.  The final hand saw the two remaining players all-in pre-flop with Cada’s pocket nines versus Moon’s Q-J suited.

The flop came 8c-2c-7s improving neither players’ hand, while a king on the turn and another 7 on the river ended Moon’s spectacular run and catapulted Joe Cada into poker superstardom.

While a lot has been said about Moon’s humility and indifference to the fame and fortune that comes with poker celebrity, he was adamant about his intentions on winning it all.

“Oh hell yeah, $3 million dollars, what do you mean what’s the difference?” replied Moon when asked if there was a big difference to him between first and second. “Am I sad about it? Am I depressed? Hell no.” For his second place finish, Moon earned $5,182,928.

A tearful Cada gave a nod to his opponent and addressed the crowd after WSOP commissioner, Jeffrey Pollack presented him with poker’s most coveted prize.

“I’ve dreamed of winning this tournament,” he said afterwards. “Aand to do it the first year out of the gate is unbelievable. This is just amazing.”

Welcome back to the New Yankee Workshop. today we will be completing our poker table project.

I may not be Norm Abrams but if you follow these instructions you will have yourself a nice casino sized poker table to make home games a lot more fun. The first step is to go back to the previous post on getting this project started. Here’s a link. Now that you have that much, we’ll jump right in with the rest.

Draw a line down the middle of the plywood creating two 4 by 4 squares. Place the screw in the exact center of one of the squares. Tie your string around the screw. The distance from the center to the straight edge of the board is the radius of your circle. Tie your pencil to the end of the string at this length from the screw. When you hold the pencil taught on the string it should be resting on the exact edge of the board. Use this to draw a circle with a 4 foot diameter (2 foot radius). Repeat on the other side.

If you want to get fancy like we did then you can even cut out a dealer slot. Keep your string the same length. You will be doing the same circle drawing trick but with the fixed point of your string 1 foot 8 inches from the center of the long side of the board. When pull taught the pencil should rest 4 inches in from the edge at the center of the long side of the board. Now when you draw your circle you should have a curve on the side of the board that is 4 inches deep at its furthest point and about 2 feet wide. It needn’t be very large.

Now you can cut the excess off of the board with your saw. Bevel the edges with your power sander so that there are no sharp corners.

Once the board is nice and smooth on all edges you are ready to attach the carpet padding to the top with whatever type of adhesive you would like. We used contact cement and it worked great. This padding will give you the softness underneath the felt. Trim the sides so the padding is beveled along with the top of the board using your razor. Carpet padding cuts like butter with a good sharp razor but they dull fast. A dull razor will chop up the padding leaving lumps under the felt. It may take three razors to get a nice cut around the entire perimeter.

Now pull your felt tight over the padding and attach it underneath with staples. Make sure to get it nice and tight and fold under the edges of the cloth before stapling so they aren’t dangling. You don’t want to give players something to tug at under the table.

For legs we just used a couple of old saw horses but attaching some dedicated legs is self explanatory enough; it is, therefore, left as an exercise to the reader. We thought about adding cup holders but decided we didn’t want people spilling on our fresh table so side tables would be in order if you are similarly fastidious. We didn’t attach any bumpers but if I ever do I’ll certainly let you all know the procedure.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures right now but I will try to get some up in the future. If I’m ever ambitious enough to try this again I’ll take pictures while its under construction to supplement this little how to guide. It was a lot of fun to build and I recommend it to anyone who has an after noon to have fun in the garage.

First the materials and tools you will need:
*Everything on this list except the felt can be obtained at a good home improvement store. The felt is eminently available at any good arts and crafts store. Assuming you already have the power tools it will probably only cost around $60.

- 8′ by 4′ plywood between 3/4″ and 1″ thick
- carpet padding of the same dimensions
- felt of slightly larger dimensions
- utility knife with fresh sharp razors
- electric saw(or a table saw, but if you have one of those you don’t need these directions)
- a strong glue
- drill
- one screw
- string
- pencil
- staple gun
- staples
- belt sander

A casino table is 8′ by 4′ so very little material will be wasted. All you have to do is take off the corners. To do this you want to divide the board in two and draw two equal circles on it. For those of you who are geometrically challenged check out my next post (Coming Monday!) where I will explain how to do that as well as the rest of the assembly procedure.