There are many bar poker leagues across the nation. I’m sure all of you have a couple in your town. The purpose of these leagues is to get customers in to the bar on a slow night to help the bar generate money. How it works is pretty simple. The league owner charges the bar a fee per table and in turn the bar hopes to recover the money spent through food and beverage sales. Sometimes finding a good league/tour is hard.

Running a search on the internet for “Bar Poker” will yield thousands of results. Since the profit margin for most of these types of business is small, you’ll find that not a lot of effort goes into online marketing. I have not come across too many sites that I would consider well developed. Well, that will make it a little difficult to find a league via the internet. One of my goals is to help the bar poker leagues gain valuable exposure through this blog as well as provide you with some information.

Most of the leagues I’ve found have been by accident. Typically I’ll go to the bar and have some drinks, notice there is a poker game going in a separate part of the bar and ask the bartender about it. If it looks interesting, I’ll come back next week or try to see if I can still get in and play.

You’ll find that most serious players scoff at these types of tournaments. If they really do make money playing poker and are not full of shit, then they are right. Why play for free if you can go make some real money? You’ll hear all kinds of talk around the bar about how bad people play and many bad beat stories. The thing is….I think these tournaments are great practice. While most people will say the poker boom is over, I believe we still haven’t seen the full extent of this boom.

Here are some reasons why Bar Poker Leagues are good:

1. They help your favorite local establishment earn revenue on nights they may not make much.
2. You’ll meet a lot of great people. The age group of the people you meet will be from 20 something’s to 70 year old grandparents.
3. Meeting such a diversity of people will help you analyze how different people approach the game. This will give you incite why a person may have played a hand a certain way, such as; I need to go, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m trying to learn, and my favorite….Fuck it it’s free bar poker!
4. Good portions of the people play for fun and don’t want to gamble with real money or are new to the game. You will also meet a lot of people who think they can play better than they really can. There are tons of people like this in the “real” poker world.
5. New players may be less intimidated to try the game out which generates more exposure.

These are just a few things that make bar poker great. I will have another article that will cover some more reasons why I think these businesses are good for poker. Here is a list of the companies Located in the Denver Area. Most of these companies also operate in Colorado Springs.

The Poker Tour – Probably my favorite tour. I started playing this tour when I first got to town and the people are great. Most of the locations are really close to my house which is also a big factor. Outside of the Littleton area, most of the games are in Parker.

The Denver Poker Tour – The second best tour on my list. They also have a couple games in the Littleton area but have a wider player base in Denver, Englewood, Colorado Springs, and other suburbs around Denver. The only thing I don’t like about this tournament is the starting amount of chips and the structure.

Colorado Poker People – I don’t know much about this tour because I’ve never played in it. From my understanding they operate mostly in the Highlands Ranch area. They used to have a wider location base but have declined in the past year since I’ve been around.

Amateur Poker Tour (now APTstars) – I’ve never played with these guys, but I know a lot of people who do. They all seem to love it. The dealers I know left other companies to deal for this one at a lower pay rate, so something must be good about it. The company seems to gear toward the Western Slope in cities like Boulder, Golden, Arvada, Fort Lupton. They also have some games listed in Aurora, Castle Rock, and Parker though. There are some concerns surrounding the company due to a CBI investigation back in April.

Front Range Poker - This tends to be an older crowd but the people are great. I guarante you will have a good time if you play one of these sessions. The tour is realitively small and that creates kind of a”clicky” crowd but it’s easy to befriend people. I like playing here because most of the games are in Littleton, Englewood, and along C-470 between 285 and Santa Fe.

I will have a complete review of each of the companies once I get a chance to play some more bar poker and check out the ones that I haven’t played in yet. It’s unfair to pass judgment without a first hand experience, so I will let you know.

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