POKER PRO CHALLENGE 2005, SHUFFLE MASTER, Poker Card Guard

Robert gave me the following informatio on how he won this Card Guard.

“Shuffle Master had a booth at the casino vendor expo back in 2005. At the time I was a poker room shift manager at a casino in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was invited to play in a tournament that Shuffle Master was sponsoring. There were 5 or 6 preliminary heats. In order to qualify for the finals you had to finish in the top two of your heat. I managed to qualify for the final tournament. In this tournament there were about 40 contestants. several of the people associated with Shuffle Master, a couple of guest pros and the casino employees that qualified. First place was a 1 oz. gold coin and 2nd was a similar coin in silver. No one from Shuffle Master nor the guest pros could win either prize. I made it to the final 4 players. Along the way I knocked Lyle Berman out of the tournament. The final four players were David Skilansky, the company owner, man that invented the shuffle master machine, a lady poker manager from the Aladin casino and myself. The tournament was running longer than expected and the company owner had to be at important meeting so he allowed one of the company employees to take over his spot. Up to this point the company owner had been playing very solid straight forward poker. The blinds were very high relative to the chips on the table I was under the gun and decided to shove with Q 3 off hoping to steel the blinds. Skilansky folded. The lady folded. The replacement player thought and thought and finally called. I was sure I was beat. When we turned over our cards I showed Q 3 off and to my surprise he showed the exact same hand. Was I relieved. Not for long though. Turn & river made him a flush. The company owner would not have called in a million years. I was out. Got 2nd. Thus the silver card guard.”