Fulltilt Pokerparty Com

December 17, 2008

If you check the fulltilt pokerparty com archives in Card Player, you'll discover it only goes back to 2001, about when Barry Shulman bought the magazine. They have 134 articles Mike wrote, going back to 2001, even though his articles in fact go all the way back to 1996. Mike's writing career for Card Player played a key role in his future successes in founding and creating the Tournament of Champions, promoting the World Pokerparty Tour, and hosting Pokerparty Mirage. These three projects completely changed Mike's life. When I reflect on how this sequence unfolded, with Mike first having to win that pokerparty tournament to get the opportunity to write about it... well, it seemed like some sort of destiny!

After winning that big pokerparty tournament and starting to write his column, Mike realized his dream in 1996 of creating the Tournament of Champions. Players don't realize how much work and time Mike donated to the ToC project and the rejections he ran into while finding a casino-hotel to host the event. The development period lasted three years before the first ToC was launched in 1999. I remember how excited he was the day he went to do a presentation for the board of directors of the Stratosphere. Ironically, the new owner, after Bob Stupak's exit, was Lakes Gaming owner Lyle Berman.

This was exciting to Mike, knowing Lyle was also a high-stakes pokerparty player. Lyle liked Mike's idea, but let him know up front that the board would have to approve it, to get it implemented. Mike had visions of the ToC final table being played at the "top of the world" at the Stratosphere, with the sensational view of the strip in the background.

In the end, the board liked Mike's idea, but voted not to approve it at this time. Mike was disappointed, but didn't give up, as he went back to the drawing board again. After a few more rejections, Mike took his TOC creation to The Orleans Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, where he got the green light. The facility worked out great, as two big ballrooms were used upstairs, one for the partypoker tournament area, and one as the Champion's Lounge.

Mike said to me, "Tom, that special collage you did on Stu Ungar," (this after Ungar won his third WSOP Main Event title) "was great! Can you do 20 to 30 more on some of the famous players? I want to showcase them around the World Poker Party Tour Champion's Lounge at the first TOC for the players to enjoy throughout the tournament." I worked for six months creating those one-of-a-kind collages, and started my own company Poker Masterpieces as a result. Mike's vision of running the classiest event in poker started with the original 1999 ToC.