On Saturday, May 16th 225 players from all over the state of Minnesota showed up a the Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen to take their shot at becoming on of the exclusive qualifiers for the Party at the Palms Championship.

With such a large field every player had to win their fair share of coin flips and play their best poker.  In the end, twenty players would end up qualifying with the last ten players remaining winning $500 towards travel expenses.

The action started out fast and furious as Travis Hartwig was the first player to be knocked out within the first half hour of play.  He got all his chips in ahead as he flopped broadway only to be sucked out on by a full house on the dreaded river.

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At our first break two hours into the tournament, Marcus Holm, an eight time championship qualifier was our chip leader with 36,600 in chips.  There were a lot of big names in the field with seven past Grand Prize winners gunning to become the first ever two time grand prize winner.

As the blinds steadily went up through the tournament more and more players were getting knocked out.  Tammi Anderson from RC's Silver Spur in Grand Rapids could have possibly set a record at a finals event by surviving eight short-stack all ins.  Unfortunately for her, the ninth was where the lucky streak ended.

When we got down to 30 players remaining we re-drew for new seating assignments.  With 20 of the 30 remaining players moving on, the crowd was watching every table as each person getting knocked out mean one spot closer.  The players on other tables were getting updated by their friends and family of any short stacks on a different table.

In the end, an 8 of diamonds changed the future for 21 people.  Sheila Gibbons from the Dive Bar in Maplewood made a call for her remaining short stack holding K-8 for top pair on a board of K-J-10.  Unfortunately for her, Carrie Olson was holding J-10 for bottom two pair.  A harmless 4 came on the turn leaving Sheila needing a king, eight, or four to survive or 20 other players would be making their plans for Vegas.  The 8 of diamonds on the river kept Sheila alive and you could hear the air coming out of the room as this now mean that any other player could be the bubble and the celebration had to be put hold.

About five minutes later Kevin Dawson from Mabel Murphy's in Fergus Falls was hanging on by the old adage chip-chair-prayer.  He was all in for his 1000 ante which he ended up winning, but a few hands later he was forced all in from the big blind and was not as fortunate as Sheila.

This tournament consisted of ladies making up 17% of the field, the highest of any state championship.  They put their poker skills to work on this day as six ladies (30% of the winners) qualified in the top 20 to win their way to the Party at the Palms Championship.

Skip Wood from the Moorhead VFW took a step toward becoming our first ever two-time Grand Prize Champion as Skip was recently one of the winners of the "Ship It" $3500 cruise packages and was running well as he was among the chip leaders all day and was able to turn that into a top 20 finish.

The final 20 qualifiers were (first 10 players listed won $500 in travel)