Trouble for Poker Bowl

By all reports, the U.S. Poker League’s inaugural Poker Bowl, which was held in October 2007, was a great success.  A great success at the poker tables, that is.  Unfortunately, when it comes to the financial viability of the event, things apparently haven’t gone so smoothly. 

The League consisted of five six-player teams in five conferences.  All of the teams competed in the preliminary rounds to see which teams emerged as conference champions.  These five champions then battled in the 30-player, Poker Bowl Finale.  

The Finale consisted of three ten-player tables, with two players from each team sitting at opposite ends of the table from each other.  Each table was its own sit-and-go tournament, and played until three players remained.  The nine surviving players were then combined into one table to play down to a winner.  

The final team to have at least two players remaining was named the “team winner” and sent three players, its top three finishers, to the playoff table.  The team whose player won the tournament sent that winner and the second best finisher from the team to the playoff table.  At the playoff table, the winning team was the one who eliminated the players from the opposing team.  

Team Detroit came out of the East Conference, St. Louis won the West, Cincinnati took the South, Hollywood won the California Conference, and New Jersey was the champ of the Northern Conference. 

Team Cincinnati, represented by Vincent Napolitano, Steve Zoine, Steve Dannenmann, Steve Kingsley, Chris Manzo and Ari Goldstein, won the Finale and $600,000. 

But did they actually win the money? 

Pokerati.com recently posted an e-mail it received from Poker Business Enterprises that the company has entered into escrow to purchase the assets of Poker Bowl.  Apparently, owners John Nightingale and Traci Wolfe had trouble keeping the business afloat, so they sold it.  Now, PBE is in the process of evaluating Poker Bowl’s assets and liabilities to determine how it might be able to pay the winners of the event, as well as other entities who had a financial stake in the operation. 

Some are speculating that one reason why Nightingale and Wolfe could not come up with the prize money was that they allowed many of the big name pros to play for free, rather than requiring them to buy-in to the event.