Ken Adams Joins World Poker Association Board

The World Poker Association (WPA) announced the addition of noted antitrust lawyer and poker player Ken Adams to their Board of Directors.

Adams will also serve as a member of the WPA's Executive Committee, in addition to chairing its Elections and By-laws Committee. His election to these posts was by a unanimous decision of Board members at the last Board meeting.

WPA's Executive Committee oversees the operations of the Association between board meetings and makes recommendations to the Directors regarding special projects.

According to WPA Executive Committee Chairman, Wendeen H. Eolis, "The Board was diligent in its recruiting efforts, and it paid off." She added, "I can't think of anyone who brings more assets to the role of a Director than Ken. He is a passionate poker player, a highly regarded poker writer and has acquired special wisdom in recent representations in gaming matters as well as decades of broad legal experience in a nationally recognized law firm."

Adams is a Yale graduate with three WSOP cashes and a recent seventh-place finish in a $5,000 WPT event at the Borgata. He has a most interesting background, which you can read on the WPA site at www.wpapoker.org.

Here's an exerpt from the site, decribing how Adams got involved with poker, in his own words:

"As for my relationship to poker, I have always been interested in games of all sorts. But I did not get serious about poker until I met Perry Green in his fur shop in Anchorage, during a family trip to Alaska in 1985 (purchased at a fundraising auction at the school whose board I chaired). Perry ended up giving me a copy of A. Alvarez' The Biggest Game In Town, which I devoured on the long plane ride home. I was fascinated and puzzled by the fact that the game considered by professional players to be "the Cadillac of poker games" - no limit Texas holdem - was one I had never heard of or played.

When I got back to Washington I organized a monthly tournament with a group of friends, as a way of learning the game. Part of the buy-in was carried over from month to month. At the end of the year, the player who accumulated the most points (based on order of finish each month) won the prize- a trip to Las Vegas to watch the final table of the World Series.

I won the prize, and in 1987 I went to Binions to watch Johnny Chan win his second successive title, busting Eric Seidel when he slow played the nut straight (in a scene memorialized in Rounders). From that point on, I attended every year's final table and began writing free-lance poker columns for various publications."

He added, "Eventually I gained enough confidence in my game to compete in the World Series starting in 2002. During the past five years I have cashed in three World Series events (including a 10th place finish in 2007) and in a dozen other major tournaments (most recently a 7th place finish in the Borgata WPT $5,000 event). I continue to write about tournament poker for cbsnews.com (the online division of CBS News), and to compete in about 15 major tournament events a year."