Dennis Phillips Marketing Machine
Who isn’t trying to capitalize on the November Nine? Word comes that the Hard Rock Casino is hosting “The 10K Dennis Phillips Chipleader Challenge” in the hopes of driving more traffic to the off-the-strip casino’s poker room. It’s been widely acknowledged the grand opening of the Hard Rock poker room has been less than a success. They fired the old poker room manager and that didn’t do much to increase traffic, either.
This little stunt makes no sense, really. Taking the chip leader, who hasn’t really won ANYTHING yet and trying to attract players is a risk, at best. At worst it will flop and they won’t even get the 20 players needed to run the tournament. The two table event will pay $50K to each table winner and then match the two in a heads-up match for the remaining $100K left in the prize pool.
So far the only players confirmed to play are Phillips, Hoyt Corkins, Roy Winston, and the cuddly little combo of David Benyamine and Erica Schoenberg. I’ll seriously be surprised if 15 more folks pony up the 10K to play this event. At least the buy-in comes with a bonus after party invite. I’m sure the 50ish Phillips is a party machine…
