Poker Dome Challenge
The MANSIONPoker.net Poker Dome Challenge was a 43-week series of speed poker tournaments offering a grand prize of $1,000,000 USD. The tournament aired in the United States on Fox Sports Network from May 2006 to March 2007. The tournament featured a number of technological gimmicks in an effort to increase viewer interest and excitement. Commentating duties were shared by rotating hosts including Barry Tompkins, Jon Kelley, Michael Konik, Michael Gracz, Joel Meyers and Chris Rose with Leeann Tweeden serving as co-host/exit interviewer (occasionally covered by Nafeesa DeFlorias). Matt Savage was the tournament director.
The series consisted of single table tournaments of six players each. Five of the six competitors qualified through daily freeroll tournaments held at mansionpoker.net. Another competitor came from the National Pub Poker League, an amateur poker league that partnered with MansionPoker.net and qualified its nightly bar tournament winners into a private weekly freeroll. . Winners of the online qualifiers were flown all expenses paid to Las Vegas, Nevada and received $500 in casino chips and other amenities.
Professional poker players Tony G, Dennis Waterman and Perry Friedman and reality television personality-turned poker pro Rob Mariano have appeared in the Dome.
Players started with 50,000 in tournament chips and play continued until one player had all 300,000. The tournament was single-elimination and only the winner of each table received prize money. Players had just 15 seconds to act on a hand before it was ruled dead. Each player was given one 30-second time extension that could be used at any time. When the table got to heads-up, each player received another 30-second time extension (although if a player hadn't previously used the extension he or she did not then have two). Betting was pot-limit pre-flop and no-limit post-flop until heads-up play, when it became all no-limit.
Each preliminary winner pocketed $25,000 in cash and advanced to the semi-finals. After each set of six preliminary tournaments, a semi-final single table tournament was played among the six winners, with the winner of that table taking $50,000 and advancing to the final table. After the six semi-final matches were played, the finalists played one more single table tournament for the $1,000,000 winner-take-all grand prize. Each of the other finalists won a prize package from Mansion Poker worth $13,000.
Read more about Poker Dome Challenge: The Poker Dome, Tournament Results, World Pro-Am Challenge
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