Is the Amateur Poker Tour under new management? There’s been a lot of rumors being thrown around about the bar poker league that was taking Colorado by storm at the beginning of the year. It looked promising with the biggest bi-monthly money tournaments in town. I mean the first years’ winner won a car!

*Update* It has been discovered that that car has since been repossessed.

It seems that the problems started when the CBI raided the poker tours office in April.

“At issue is a $199 quarterly fee charged by the poker company for a VIP Gold Card, giving holders a different prize than those playing for free.“An illegal poker game is one in which players pay a fee to play,” said CBI Agent Ralph Gagliardi. Social poker games are legal, but when a host or organizer charges any kind of fee for participation, Colorado law defines the game as illegal”

Full Story at Rocky Mountain News

Next, the tour had to cancel its trip for players to a tournament in Las Vegas. In a press release on the APT site it states that the investigation by the CBI is over and then immediately follows that it must cancel its scheduled tournament in Vegas, however; the letter seems to imply that it was out of the company’s control.

CBI Investigation
& International Tournament

“Great news!!! The recent investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation related to the operations of The Amateur Poker Tour has been closed. The result: The Amateur Poker Tour made some changes to its VIP Gold membership program and absolutely NO charges were filed and NO fines imposed.

While The International Tournament originally scheduled to be held at Binion’s casino in Las Vegas from May 4th – 7th, 2007 had to be cancelled, The Amateur Poker Tour is currently working to reschedule this event in the near future. The exact Las Vegas location for this event will be announced as soon as possible.”

When the APT, which now operates under APTstars, first came into town they were all the rave. They offered huge prizes, free money, and preferred seating. Less than a year later the promises to the players and staff seem to be those of the empty kind. I play in a couple of different bar poker leagues in the metro area and have spoken with a couple people who used to deal for the APT. Most of them claim to have left because they were owed money for their shifts. Now keep in mind that these claims are unverified and dealers/poker players are full of shit, but with the recent press releases and newsletters sent out by the company, it appears there could be some truth to those claims. Just have a look at the APTstars.com front page.

Thank You Dealers!!!

We would like to thank all of our dealers for being there for us night in and night out. You are the back bone to our company and we appreciate everything you do. Your effort and patience is appreciated and we see how special and important you are! Thank you again for being there for us and we will do everything we can in the future to make APTstars everything it should be and everything you want it to be!

Dealers who deal free bar poker generally make $25-$40 a session plus tips.

The most recent new is that the tour has a new “management company” naming Hugo Fernandez as the owner and operator. This is probably one of the best moves the tour could have made at this point. Hugo is an experienced poker player and regular at some of the bar poker leagues in town. You can expect him to get things on the right track and hopefully bring the tour out of the muck.

In my opinion the owner/operator(s) of the company had a great concept for a bar poker tour. The problem is that they made too many promises and had such big plans that the company overextended its self. Would this have happened if the company wasn’t investigated for hosting illegal poker games? Who knows?

So, is APT under new management? Not according to the website and news letters. Is this just a bridge until new management takes over ownership? It makes sense to me that this is most likely the case, especially after someone has plotted to kill the owner and founder of the tour just last week. The article also offers some incite to the debt the owner is in. It also leaves me with some outstanding questions with regard to the CBI investigation. All in all, who knows? I’m just trying to put pieces of the stories together and let you to make your own decision.

Rattle Snake Murder Plot

“Steelman said he went to Sowash near the end of June and told him of the alleged plot. Sowash, in turn, went to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which has been investigating his firm for possible securities fraud, according to arrest affidavits.”

“According to the affidavit, Steelman was going to build a wooden box to hold several rattlesnakes. The two men would then force Sowash to put his legs into the box so the snakes would bite him.”

Death by rattle snake? I had a really really good laugh after that one. Let’s all cross our fingers and hope that this tour puts up or shuts up!

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