Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

A solid month of poker with Gulf Coast Poker tournaments continues at Poker Gras right now.  As always this is only thanks to the hard work, belief in poker, and contributions of others.  So let's say the much needed Thank Yous! First off...  Thank you to the players reading this and traveling to our events and making suggestions to improve our product or tweak an event--we thank each and every one of you.  Not to mention all of you liking, sharing, tweeting and retweeting.   We are lucky to have so many great and supportive believers across our footprint. Most important part of getting people to tournament is word of mouth.  And we appreciate all the nice things you've said about us and our partners.  Not to mention, first time, we've ever been at an event and the players in it were rooting for the guarantee to be met... not missed. Very touching.  There are way too many of you to name, but you know who you are. Even better so many of you kic...

Just wanted to say Thank You! to everybody that attended our first ever poker tournament:  Poker Gras .  Think it was a big success.  Definitely looking to continue the positives everybody raved about as well as expand the options a little bit in the future. Big thank you to Chase Haydel and Harrahs New Orleans for giving us this opportunity and I think they'll agree everybody won after our first time out.  More to come. By the way, check out this article on Chase by Ben Saxton Also, feel it's important to highlight the tireless efforts by Chase, Robbie Gertsner, Joella McIntosh, Mel Emnon and Timmy Louie.  As TDs they busted their butts to put together an in house tournament and had everything moving fairly seamlessly.  Not to mention just about every one of them asked me to put the spotlight on the hard work of somebody else.  Humble, smart, hard-working, what more could you ask for? Our first ever winner of Poker Gras, Mihail Karasoulis, is...

Once again guest writer Ben Saxton... Planning for the Future at Harrah’s New Orleans Poker Room For almost twenty years, Harrah’s New Orleans has offered one of the biggest and most entertaining poker rooms on the Gulf Coast. I recently chatted with manager Chase Haydel about an addition to the weekly tournament schedule, the return of popular promotions, and his plans for the future. Before he joined the room in July 2017, Chase didn’t have much experience with poker. The New Orleans native comes from a long line of restaurateurs—including Chase’s grandma, Leah, who runs the famous Dooky Chase’s Restaurant. Chase was a dealer at Boomtown Casino in 1994 before moving with his wife to Atlanta. When he returned in 2013, he joined Harrah’s New Orleans as a table games supervisor. Now, as poker room manager, he’s focused on outpacing the competition. “The poker world is becoming saturated,” Chase told me. “There’s a lot more rooms than there used to be, a lot more tours. A...