Poker runs a big draw

Boat/US Magazine, Sept, 2002 by Elaine Dickinson

With boaters always game for exciting new ways to entertain themselves and their friends, the waterways were flush with poker runs this summer. Clubs all over the U.S. are hosting these on-the-water scavenger hunts to the point that there are over 100 major events, plus dozens of smaller ones, for vessels of all kinds.

For those unattuned to the latest boating trends, a poker run is simply a floating card game where boaters depart from a starting point to five stops, around a lake or perhaps miles away up a river or bay, where they pick up one playing card at each stop. When they reach the end of the stops or return to the start, the boat with the best poker hand wins. At one event a $250,000 powerboat was the prize for anyone drawing five of a kind.

While poker runs may have originated about 15 years ago as high speed rallies for "gear-head" powerboats, all types of boats from dinghies to canoes have been brought into the fold. Poker runs have evolved from "hot rod" drag races to tightly controlled family-friendly outings.

Advocates of properly run events say emphatically a poker run is not a race. Speed actually plays no role in winning -- the best hand wins every time. And as any visitor to Las Vegas knows, winning at gambling is largely chance.

"The whole attraction is the get-together," said Larry Boyd, event administrator for the American Poker Runs Association (APRA), based in Highland Park, MI. "It's a recreational, family event and the attraction is you're playing a hand of poker. Everyone has an equal shot at winning some significant prizes."

Now attracting corporate sponsors, poker runs are featuring some major prizes as part of the big draw -- including boats, cash up to $15,000, cameras, designer watches, and a variety of boating gear.

You certainly don't need to be an ace to participate as the larger poker runs are highly organized. Some are short courses and others can go for 200 miles; there are poker runs for the macho Cigarette boat owners--a sort of amateur waterborne NASCAR--and poker runs for small cruisers, pontoon boats and even personal watercraft; many are held as fundraisers for local charities. This month alone there are major poker runs in San Diego, CA, Dallas, TX, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Glen Cove, NY, and on the Potomac River near Washington, DC.

APRA, founded four years ago in part to set safety standards and counter the drag racing image, sanctions about 25 of the major poker runs and actually runs about 12 of those, for boats 28 feet and up. The biggest by distance, Boyd said, was just held up in New York's Thousand Islands, running from Alexandria Bay, NY, to Canada. About 150 boats participated.

"There is an attraction to the competitiveness of it, I'm sure," said Barkley Geib, owner of Lanier Harbor Marina on Lake Lanier, GA, a Boat U.S. Cooperating Marina. On Aug. 8-10, he held his 9th annual "world's largest" poker run with 1,500 participants. "Owners like to show off their boats but our poker run is more of a family event. We have trivia questions for prizes and games for the kids. It's just something fun for people to do on the lake."

So much fun, Geib cuts the entries off at 300, with a $150 registration fee. It is sanctioned by APRA but Geib runs it himself and has built it into such a big draw that the top prize this year was a $250,000 Formula 353 powerboat--but that's only if you draw five of a kind.

"We had a guy last year who got four of a kind, the best hand we've ever had," Geib said, adding that he won $5,000 cash. In addition to prize money this year, a $5,000 motorbike will be awarded, plus all entries have a shot at winning a $8,000 Yamaha Waverunner PWC. The "best looking" crew wins a trip to the Bahamas.

Proving the Lanier Harbor poker run is not just for high performance boats, Geib, who happens to run an official pace boat for the APBA Offshore Pro Series races, runs the event on three different courses around the lake for powerboats, cruisers, and pontoon boats. Each has a speed limit for the course of 40 mph, 20 mph and 10 mph respectively. To downplay the urge to race, a prize is given in each class for recording a perfect time around the course. Start and stop times are logged at each checkpoint. "Last year the top 10 finishing boats were not more than 45 seconds off after a three-and-a-half-hour course. That's pretty good," Geib said.

How the cards are dealt may also differ from event to event. While APRA uses sealed envelopes opened at day's end, Lanier Harbor lets all the boats draw from a full deck out of a bag at each stop. Their card is then recorded and put back in the bag. The volunteers at each checkpoint (a big houseboat) call in the cards to a central computer, and results are posted and updated on a big scoreboard floating on the lake.

Safety is a top concern, said Geib, and some 50 volunteers and 10 Coast Guard Auxiliary vessels help patrol the games on the 60-mile long lake. "There's no big thundering send off at ours. The boats leave in 30-second intervals, from pontoons to 60 mph speedboats. But the beauty of it is that they all cohabitate together at the same checkpoints. We've never had an incident," Geib said.