Card Player Poker Tour Returns to bestbet Jacksonville August 13-24

Professional poker player Sean Winter and construction company owner Harvey Vandeven each hold Card Player Poker Tour bestbet Jacksonville titles and soon, a third name will be added to the CPPT Hall of Fame out of the northern Florida card room.

The CPPT will make its way back to Jacksonville after a year-long hiatus for a 10-tournament series Aug. 13-24.

“It’s been over a year since our last Card Player Poker Tour event and we are very excited to have them back,” said Jesse Hollander, bestbet Jacksonville Director of Poker Operations.

Typically drawing fields of more than 200 players, the $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event with a $300,000 guarantee main event is expected to be even better this time around.

“It’s actually been a while since our last big event,” Hollander said. “So this should be very well attended.”

Vandeven, an Ocala, FL resident, outlasted a field of 255 players and took home $76,598 for his win in September of 2013.

“The final table was great. It’s very nice, was well run and well put on,” Vandeven said after his win. “We had a great time at the final table. We were playing poker and having a great time and just forgetting about the money.”

Eight months after Vandeven’s win, Florida pro Sean Winter bested a field of 218 players to take home an even $84,000.

“I liked my chances coming in,” Winter said. “I thought I had a good shot at it.”

The bestbet series will mark the sixth stop of Season III of the CPPT. The main event winner is likely to take home one of the largest single payouts of the season and will join Fred Paradis (Foxwoods – $81,520), Maxim Sorokin (Wynn – $101,619), Nick Weinberg (Atlantis – $38,625), Chan Pelton (Choctaw – $130,455), and Enrici Christophe (St. Maarten – $37,950) on the list of this season’s champions.

The ten-tournament schedule includes a $350 no-limit hold’em $100,000 guarantee, a $200 no-limit hold’em $50,000 guarantee tournament, a $240 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better tournament, an all-in or fold tournament, bounty tournaments and many satellites.

Multi-table satellites for the main event will begin in early July and run all the way up until the start of the biggest event of the series. High-hand promotions will also run for several hours prior to each multi-table satellite tournament to award seats into those events.

“With 70 tables and a spacious layout, our room is built for poker comfort,” Hollander said. “Players will enjoy our tournaments as well as our large selection of cash games daily. With lots of daily promotions and giving out cash and satellite entries, everyone will have an opportunity to win their way into one of our many multi-table satellites or just pick up some extra cash.”

Players who wish to extend their CPPT experience will also have the opportunity to win a CPPT Cruise seven-night package worth $3,600 on the Oasis of the Seas.

Every Tuesday and Friday in June, bestbet will award high-hand winners from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. a spin on the 16-slot prize wheel, which will include CPPT packages on three of the slots. The wheel will also include cash prizes from $200 to $5,000. After 12 CPPT Cruise packages have been awarded, the slots will be replaced with cash prizes. bestbet will award a $100 table-share prize during the high-hand promotion, where each player dealt into the high-hand will receive $100.

The CPPT Oasis of the Seas cruise will take place Sept. 5-12 in the Eastern Caribbean.

“We went on the Card Player cruise and had an epic time,” said bestbet cash-game and tournament regular Eddy Mroczkowski. “It was my first time on a cruise and everything was perfect. All the other poker players were great people, the poker room staff was great, the tournament structure was good and they arranged excursions for us to be able to go on at a reasonable rate.”

“If the room and action wasn’t already good enough, the promotions they offer are second to none,” said bestbet Jacksonville regular Eddy Mroczkowski. “The fact that they give away free tournament entries as cash game high-hands gives us locals a chance to play all the tournaments at a discounted rate. Not many poker rooms give away table-shares and bestbet does, which gives the whole table a chance to win money instead of just a single winner.”

bestbet Jacksonville is Florida’s largest poker room and is conveniently located minutes from Jacksonville International Airport and Jacksonville beaches.

For more information visit, www.cardplayerpokertour.com or www.bestbetjax.com. ♠