[toc]Poker Night in America is coming to Rivers Casino Schenectady. The maiden voyage aims to be a memorable one too. The New York casino will host the first-ever King of the Hill event, a new heads-up tournament concept from Poker Night in America. The event runs from August 22-25.
The King of the Hill concept is one Poker Night in America is taking to several casinos besides Rivers Schenectady.
King of the Hill to feature Phil Hellmuth
King of the Hill features several elements, but the centerpiece is a four-man heads-up no-limit hold’em competition. The following four players are participating in the contest:
- Phil Hellmuth
- Doug Polk
- Dan Cates
- Frank Kassela
Each player is posting $50,000 of their own money to take part in a winner-take-all tournament. The opening rounds are on August 22. The finals will run the following day, with the winner taking home $200,000. For posterity’s sake, the winner also earns a wrestling-esque championship belt.
Both Polk and Kassela are fresh off bracelet victories at this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP). Kassela took down the $1,500 no-limit deuce-to-seven tournament, his fourth career bracelet.
Polk, on the other hand, walked away with one of the most prestigious bracelets in the game. The outspoken pro won the One Drop High Roller, defeating a stacked final table to win almost $3.7 million.
Cates is renowned for his heads-up poker skills. Of course there is Hellmuth, who will happily tell you about his 14 career WSOP bracelets.
Each of the matches will be both filmed for television and streamed online. Poker Night in America announced who would play each other in the opening rounds on Thursday:
KOTH Match-Ups! @junglemandan vs @fkassela and @DougPolkPoker vs @phil_hellmuth. August 22-23 @RiversCasino_NY Winner take all (plus belt).
— PokerNight.com (@PokerNightTV) July 27, 2017
Rivers Casino streaming cash games run August 24 and 25
As part of Poker Night in America’s trip upstate, there will also be two days of cash game action. The invite-only action will be seven-handed. There will be two days of play on August 24 and 25.
Like the heads-up tournament, the games are going to be filmed for television as well as livestreamed.
Rush Street Gaming owns both the Poker Night in America brand and Rivers Casino Schenectady. Nonetheless, Rivers actually flew solo on a recent Memorial Day poker event. The casino ran a highly successful tournament called the Capital Poker Classic.
The tournament is just one of many indicators that the Schenectady property wants to be the top destination for poker in New York State. During its grand opening in February, several poker pros, including Poker Night in America consultant Matt Glantz and New York native Shaun Deeb, attended and spoke highly of the property on social media.
While the new upstate casinos are not performing to expectations on the whole, Rivers Casino’s poker room is already quite popular. Earlier this year, management acknowledged they were already brainstorming ways to accommodate more players.
