In this second part of a continuing series leading up to our next AVP Tournament and Meet at The Mirage on Saturday, June 23rd, we will be taking a look back at previous AVP Meets. Today’s article will recollect three prior AVP meets, AVP II, III, & IV, held at Binion’s, Planet Hollywood, and Treasure Island. These meets were all special and unique due to the transition that occurred from our first meet held at Sahara, to our second, which was a private single table tournament, to our third at TI which was a large event that literally took over the room! Let’s take a step back in time and recall the early days of AVP meets…

AVP II is probably the least talked about meet, since it was really spawned strictly by the players and did not get a lot of press on AVP itself mainly because none of the AVP staff was able to participate. A couple AVP’ers posted a trip planning thread and the meet was run at Binion’s in Downtown Las Vegas. There were 10 players that showed up and they played a single table Sit N Go. This meet occurred in April of 2007. Unfortunately, no additional details are available, as it was not reported to AVP who won or who attended.

On May 25th, 2007 AVP III occurred at Planet Hollywood’s newly relocated poker room. This new room was quite a bit expanded from their old room, and was located right by a central Strip walk by entrance to the casino. They hosted a popular nightly tournament that often got 50+ players. This would be the last meet that was done by AVP that involves joining a pre-existing tournament. Going forward, all meets would be semi-private events that were set up directly by AVP in conjunction with the host casino.

AVP III brought together 19 AVP members to the Planet Hollywood poker room. As was the standard back then, 17 of the attendees agreed on a last longer bet before joining in the tournament. Over 75 people played in the tournament, and when the tournament got down to only 17 players, there were still 6 AVP’ers alive in the event. LVM got knocked out 17th. Only the top 9 got paid.

Huddler and JBChestnut were the last two still in the tournament come the Final Table, and Chestnut got knocked out 9th for a $100 payday. The poker room where this meet was held is no longer operational as a poker room, and now serves as the high limit table games area. The poker room was relocated to the center of the casino, adjacent to Heart Bar a couple years after AVP III.

AVP IV was our first “private” tournament. Held at Treasure Island on September 23rd, 2007 this meet was one for the AVP books. 35 AVP members came out for the meet, and took over the TI poker room. Several notables including LVM, Photoc, ilikecheese, and TheOD were all present amongst many others. This meet went on pretty long, and in the end, it was an epic heads up battle between ilikecheese and The OD, with ilikecheese eventually taking down the tournament. This was also the first AVP meet that offered 6 bounties on certain AVP members. Cheese took down two bounties on his way to taking home the crown as AVP IV Champion!

AVP IV would be the last meet to be held in 2007. A total of 4 meets were held that year, and the momentum only built from there. Now, 5 years later, we are looking forward to AVP XVI to be held at The Mirage, where we expect a LARGE turnout. Be sure to get those RSVP’s in while you still can!

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--LasVegasMichael