The Bayou Poker Challenge tournament series gets underway at Harrah's New Orleans on Friday, May 9th.  This is the WSOP Circuit's second stop in the Big Easy during the 2007/2008 season.   Preliminary events run through May 18th.  View the complete schedule here.  This is the last stop on this season's schedule as the world will turn its focus to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, which gets underway on May 30th.

	Andy Philachack - Winter 2007 champion

The Winter Bayou Poker Challenge championship took place last December and seated 160 players.  On the third day of play, relative unknown Andy Philachack found himself heads-up with two-time WSOP bracelet winner Josh Arieh.  Heads-up play did not last long as a betting war broke out on a T 9 7 flop.  All the chips went in and both players had flopped two pair.  Andy's T7 had Josh's 97 in bad shape, drawing to just two remaining 9s.  No nine appeared an Andy won his first major poker tournament and $247,860. He was also awarded a $10,000 buy-in into the 2008 World Series of Poker main event.

	Lou Esposito - Spring 2007 Champ

Last Spring's Bayou Poker Challenge was more than twice as large with 346 players entering the fray.   Well-known pro Phil Gordon held the chip lead going to the final table and was the odds-on favorite to win the event.  It was not to be, however, as Phil ran his pocket Kings into the pocket Aces of Lou Esposito.  Although Phil survived that encounter, it was the beginning of the end for him and he had to settle for fourth place.  Lou Esposito rode that wave all the way to the championship, earning $516,801 and his seat in the 2007 WSOP Main Event.

This year's championship gets underway on Monday, May 19th at noon central time and runs for three days.  I'll be there bloggin' the action for you LIVE right here on PokerPages.com!

Kaelaine Minton Reporting

Kaelaine is one of the hardest working reporters on the tournament cicruit, and she can play poker, too!  She won the 2007 World Poker Open Media Tournament at the Goldstrike in Tunica, besting a field of 50 to win the event and the WPO gold bracelet!   Her motto is "will do anything poker-related for money".

Contact Kaelaine