Recently, I was in Reno for the Pot of Gold tournament at the Reno Hilton. It is always a pleasure to go there, as Mike Gainey runs a great poker tournament. The room always has many player-friendly features. One that I particularly like is that there are buckets of cold bottled water around the room so that it is easy for players to access them.

We all know that David Lamb is a great tournament director. Additionally, he had a great support team of Steve Morrow, Jody Ivenor, and Billy V. That is a tremendous amount of tournament management talent.

To celebrate the grand opening of its new poker room, the Reno Hilton will host a special tournament Dec. 7-15.

The Reno Hilton's big annual tournament is the World Poker Challenge Jan. 4-25, 2002, which will conclude with a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event. I attended the entire tournament last year and it was great, and this year promises to be even better. One improvement from last year is that the entire tournament area will be nonsmoking.

Also in Reno, a new tournament will be unveiled at the Eldorado Hotel and Casino Nov. 27-Dec. 5. The poker room manager at the Eldorado is the affable Margie Heintz, and David Lamb will be the tournament director for this event, which will feature buy-ins of $100 and $200. The tournament will use the TEARS structure and will offer second-chance events in addition to the daytime noon events.

The Eldorado is located downtown in a particularly desirable part of Reno. The casino's second-level arcade features several restaurants, including the elegant BuBinga nightclub and the Brew Brothers Pub, which has an extensive menu and nightly music. And, room rates are very reasonable – $30 or $40 depending on the day.