Conference Play Continues Today For 2007 Poker Bowl at Palms Casino

Poker pro Shannon Shorr holds the chip lead with nine players left in Northern Conference play at the 2007 US PokerBowl. (Bodog Beat Image)

After a change of venue from Bally's Casino in Las Vegas to the Palms Casino, the 2007 US PokerBowl got underway this weekend and featured a plethora of poker pros. The playoff-style poker tournament saw winners emerge in the Eastern and Western Conferences, with Northern Conference play down to the final nine contenders. One winner from each conference qualifies their entire team for the finale.

Poker pro Kenna James won the Eastern Conference for Team Detroit meaning that he and teammates Mark Seif, Nick Brancato, Rick Fuller, Scotty Nguyen and Kathy Liebert will all be playing in the finale tomorrow. The same for Western Conference winner Adam Gerber and his Team St. Louis teammates Anna Wroblewski, Joe Tehan, John Kimm, Hank Sitton and Allen Kessler.

The Northern Conference tournament was supposed to wrap up yesterday but ran long and will finish up on Tuesday at 10:00 am ET before the finale starts. Poker pro Shannon Shorr holds the lead with nine players remaining, followed closely by online poker pros Eric "Rizen" Lynch and Justin "zeejustin" Bonomo.

Today, the Southern and California Conferences will each play down to their respective individual and, therefore, team winners. The Southern Conference features players like Greg Mueller, Steve Dannenmann, TJ Cloutier, Layne Flack, Clonie Gowen, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and online poker phenom Tom "durrrr" Dwan. In the California Conference, Jeff Madsen, Paul Wasicka, JC Tran, Nam Le, Michael Mizrachi, Alex Jacob and Max Pescatori will be fighting to get their teams to the finals.

The finale will be conducted in much the same way. The winning team from each five conferences will play against each other down to an individual winner who will earn $600,000 for his team in victory. Teams two through five will each get $100,000 to split amongst themselves. So, with six players per team, the payouts will jump from about $16k per player to $100k per team member for the winners.