Jenny Kriewald: First Woman HPT Champ

Mahnomen, MN - Jenny Kriewald, a 29-year old mother of three and owner of a day care center, became the first woman to win a Heartland Poker Tour tournament Sunday, April 15th. She outlasted 133 players in the championship event to capture 1st Place and $52,973 at the Shooting Star Casino, in Mahnomen, MN.

Jenny won her way into the HPT event playing in a free bar league in her hometown. The Dakota Poker League champ then parlayed her free-roll win into a seat in the Heartland Tournament where she reached the Final Table as the chip leader and never looked back.

Jenny exclaimed, "This feels awesome. I'm going to Vegas!" Kriewald plans to play in the ladies event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) this summer in Las Vegas.

"The Heartland Poker Tour is wonderful. It gives regular folks a chance to have a fun, unique and exciting experience, win or lose. More women should give the game a chance and events like the HPT offer a perfect opportunity."

The Heartland Poker Tour, in just its third season, has become one of the foremost successes in the business. It will conduct and broadcast tournaments in more than a dozen locations around the country in 2007. The HPT crew next travels to the Leelanau Sands Casino, near Traverse City, Michigan.

Already one of the top three televised poker productions in the country viewed in more than 50 million households annually, the 2007 Tour has just completed a deal to air in 119 million homes throughout Europe and Asia.

The Heartland Poker Tour was created for poker players in local casinos and neighborhood card rooms around the country. The HPT is like the Minor Leagues. It was designed and developed to give players everywhere a chance to make the Big Time.

HPT Tournaments are customarily five days long. Preliminary events are held the first four days and the Championship event concludes on the fifth day. The elimination of the last six players, the "Final Table", of the Championship event is televised.

Convinced a lot of local players would like a shot at stardom, Heartland keeps the cost of entry within the reach of most people. Consequently, because there are so many participants the prize money is exciting. Add an audience, lights and TV cameras, and players in the Championship feel like they're competing at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.