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The court hearing for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s lawsuit against nontribal poker clubs in Tucson and elsewhere in Arizona has been postponed until Dec. 15.

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Judge Leslie Miller scheduled a Sept. 29 hearing to determine whether to issue a temporary restraining order to shut down the month-old Club Royale poker room.

The hearing starts at 2 p.m. in Room 475 at Pima County Superior Court, 110 W. Congress St.

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The Pascua Yaqui Tribe filed suit Tuesday against Club Royale, a new poker room at 2665 N. Campbell Ave., seeking the club’s closure and alleging that it engages in illegal gambling.

The suit also names Harold S. Lee, founder of the Tombstone-based International Card and Game Players Association, with which Club Royale and a couple of non-tribal poker rooms in the Phoenix area are affiliated.

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A poker-loving Tucson couple have opened a card room on the North Side, hoping to provide local players with a cheaper alternative to casinos and give exposure to a growing debate over poker’s legality in Arizona beyond Indian reservations.

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A retired judge who operates poker rooms in southern Arizona in defiance of state investigators says his organization is opening a new card parlor in Phoenix later this month.

Texas Hold’em games operated by Harold Lee of Tombstone have been referred for criminal prosecution several times by agents of the Arizona Department of Gaming, but he has never been charged.

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SIERRA VISTA — As the judge explains to me how poker is not gambling, I understand him, and maybe even agree with him on an intellectual level. Simultaneously however, as the players and dealers ready for the evening’s Texas Hold ‘em event, stacking the chips and shuffling the cards, my mouth starts to water as it might if I were walking past a spinning roulette wheel or a blackjack table with one empty seat.
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Chris Moneymaker was a mild-mannered accountant in Tennessee when he spent $40 to enter an Internet poker tournament. Before he was done, he’d won $2.5 million in the 2003 World Series of Poker (the first tourney he’d ever played in a casino) — giving the hundreds of thousands who watched on ESPN something to shoot for.

“I think anyone who comes in this room thinks, yeah, that could be me,” said 40-year-old Fran Lieberman, who sat waiting for a tournament to begin in the poker room at Casino del Sol last month. “Who wouldn’t?”

Even five years after the start of what is commonly referred to as the “poker boom,” the Moneymaker Effect continues to draw new waves of players to poker tables at local casinos, corner bars, living rooms and online.

“It’s probably more popular now than ever,” says Rick Chaurette, poker room director at Casino del Sol since 2003, who sees no end to the increased interest. “We’ve taught a whole new generation about poker, and a percentage of them are locked in for life.”

The game that has sucked in so many is Texas hold’em. With its relatively simple rules and a format that makes it easy to show — and analyze — on TV, hold’em has become part of the national lexicon.

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Retired cop Mike Rose chomped on an unlit stogie and took one last peek at his cards, then shoved the remainder of his poker chips toward the dealer.

“All in,” he announced.

Another player called the bet. Rose shook his head ruefully, turned up a losing hand and muttered, “He just caught me bluffing.”
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