Taylor County poker tournament
is won by local man

Ashley Hunter
ECB Publishing, Inc.

Several Jefferson County residents made the trip to Perry, Fla. (in Taylor County) for the 15th annual Texas Hold'Em Poker Tournament, which was hosted by the Perry-Taylor County Chamber of Commerce.

The evening included several entertaining and competitive rounds of Texas Hold'Em poker; this is one of the more popular forms of poker, and has a long history of playing. Texas Hold'Em is credited as having been created in the early 1900s by card players from Robstown, Texas. From there, the game spread like wildfire through the Lone Star State before its introduction to the world of casinos in Las Vegas during the 1960s.
On Friday, June 26, the Taylor County chamber staff hosted their 15th tournament for the popular card-game, with several local-folk from Perry as well as out-of-county visitors from Jefferson and Madison Counties.
The competition began at 6 p.m., with the game lasting until 11:30 p.m.
By the time the Top 10 players were gathered for the final round, three Jefferson County card-players, Raymond Bass, Michael Blodgett and John Todd, were all left in the finalist rounds.
At the end of the night, it was Blodgett who finally cashed in big during the tournament, as won the first place grand prize trophy and the sponsored weekend stay in Biloxi, Miss.
In addition to Blodgett, Todd and Bass, Jefferson County was represented by its own chamber of commerce director, Katrina Richardson, who was present at the competition.
The evening was sponsored by Nammo, Inc., Georgia Pacific and Duke Energy.