Look what I found: Poker the new Bingo?

[Quint]

A buddy of mine was in Portsmouth this weekend and checked out the action.

First, it seems Portsmouth passed legislation to make poker equivilent to bingo for charitable fundraising. I'm sure there a some pretty stringent regs governing it.

At 1pm they have a $25 tournament with unlimited rebuys for the first 1.5 hours and an add-on. $1000 in starting chips, $1000 rebuys, and $1500 add-on ($25 each). This Saturday there were 104 entrants and they played 8 to a table, self-dealt. It sounds like they take out 50-60% for charity and the rest goes into the prize pool. It paid out the top 8 or so and 1st got around $500. You got a receipt for your buyin and each rebuy/add-on.

At 7pm they do another tournament with the same structure, but $50 buyin/rebuys/add-on. Buddy left before this one started.

The cash games, at least on this day, were 1-2NL and 2-4LHE. 9 -handed with "professional", but unpaid (no tips) dealers. They rake is $2 for pots between $7-$49, $6 for $50-$99, $12 for $100-$299, and $15 for $300+. Buddy played 1-2NL. The buyin was $100-$300. He bought in for the max and sat down with a chip lead. He said the game was very soft and he was able to walk away up about $100 an hour later having caught absolutely no cards the entire time.

Overall, I don't think I'd play the tournaments and the rake on the cash games seems excessive, but it sounds like the game is soft enough to still turn a profit and get some live experience. At least this game, 2.5 hours away, is a decent alternative to AC, 5.5 hours away, for a poor shmuck married with 2 young kids.

Edit: Portsmouth is actually 1.5 hours away, not 2.5.