For a few years prior to this post, I had played in a poker league called The Northwest Poker League. It was a great league when it first started. People respected the game, generally played well, and were enjoyable to be around. As word spread like wildfire there was this poker league you could play in that was free, the league began to fracture. You'd get the drunk person (as most venues were in pubs or taverns) that would sit down at the table and play terribly, and be belligerent and irritating.

The Northwest Poker League accrued around 6000 players, and decided there name "Northwest Poker League" was too short minded, they needed to be able to expand. So they renamed themselves "The Great American Poker Tour". Kind of a stupid name, but from that point on things just got worse. Their business model relied on bringing players into 'venues' (bars, restaurants, night clubs, etc.) so they would purchase food and drinks. I always would buy a drink, or a meal, or something to support the league, but most people did not. It's a tough business model, they're offering a free service with very high operating costs. Generally each venue had 2 poker tables, 2 dealers, and an investment of 5-6 to pay those dealers.  I know some venues paid upwards of $250 a night to have the league operate from their location.

The Great American Poker Tour (GAPT) began to experience a mass exodus of sponsors. Venues could not justify the expense. And despite the weekly emails from the founders BEGGING people to buy food and drinks, the league went from 12 or so venues to 5 ish. I finally got fed up with seeing the familiar faces of people that would not pay anything to play. I stopped going. Hence no real poker posts on the blog for quite a while.

Well, there's a new league in town and they are doing SEVERAL things I tried to get the GAPT league to do. Here's a breakdown of how the new National Poker Challenge league (NPCPoker) is doing that I think is GREAT for the game, and for the league.

• NPC Poker has rented a physical place and it's a dedicated poker room. (NO GAMBLING is going on here, and it's all legal) This solves the problem of being reliant on a retail establishment to cover the expense of having the league operate out of it.
• NPC Poker is NON SMOKING. This is so huge, most of the venues I played from previously allowed smoking. That was another reason I quit playing. Even with the retail non-smoking bill that's coming up for vote, it's still nice to be able to go home smelling like I did when I arrived.
• NPC Poker limits the amount of games you can play for one of their leagues. Thus a player can only play 10 games per month and are not able to skew their stats by playing more frequently. Unlike the GAPT where players can play every night of the month (almost) just showing up and signing in, these players have an edge on someone who plays a few times per week, no matter how crappy the play.
• NPC Poker has multiple leagues and ways to play.
• NPC Poker has other games than just Hold' Em.
• NPC Poker allows you to schedule your games weeks in advance, and you can show up minutes before the game starts. GAPT required you to show up almost 45 minutes prior to the game starting, (in order to get you to buy food and drinks supposedly). This was time generally sitting in the smoky environment just 'waiting'.
• NPC Poker charges a monthly fee to play. Looking at their fee schedule it may seem expensive, but if you play well, and finish high, there is a lot of money to be won. If people feel like they have something at stake, they're generally going to play tighter, and potentially give off more tells about their game.
• NPC Poker encourages people to respect the game and play well

So I've played two games so far, finishing 3, and 1st respectively. It's been refreshing because I've actually been able to bluff, steal pots, and play good poker. Unlike the GAPT, where people were just looking to suck out on you, the people at NPC have something at stake and something to strive towards.

After talking with the four guys that started this league, I've come to find out they are all ex-airline pilots from Northwest Airlines. They pretty much got dropped from NW after the whole 9/11 thing, and they've been looking for their calling. This seems to be it. NPC Poker started in Nashville, TN. The Bloom brothers (the owners) have bought a franchise right from the NPC parent organization in Nashville. You'll soon see many other cities coming in the future.

I read a book called "Poker as Life: 101 Lessons from the World's Greatest Game"; on page one it says, "If there is nothing at stake, there is no point." Amen.