The State Directors program is part of the PPA's comprehensive strategy to become a player in national and state-level policy debates to protect the rights of poker players across the nation.
"With close to one million members, the PPA is fortunate to have a dedicated and active membership base, but we need eyes and ears on the ground to help us," said PPA Chairman and former Senator Alfonse D'Amato.
"With the state directors program, we will have a leader in each state who can update us on local news stories or legislation and who can quickly mobilize their fellow local PPA members to help carry the PPA banner in their home state. We are proud of the state directors we have named today and look forward to working with them."
More an 1,000 applicants were considered for the state director positions, and according to the PPA, the people chosen were not only active PPA members, but also leaders in their communities who can advocate on behalf of the PPA.
A few positions haven't been filled yet, but the state directors are:
| Alabama: Bret Atiyeh | Alaska: Wayne McGregor |
| Arizona: Steven J. Yeager | Arkansas: Jennifer O'Steen |
| California: Steven Miller | Colorado: Gary Reed |
| Connecticut: James Freehan | Delaware: TBA |
| District of Columbia: Norman Smith | Florida: Dick Campbell |
| Georgia: Kelli Mix | Hawaii: David Wallace |
| Idaho: Wendy Nutting | Illinois: Steve Brubaker |
| Indiana: Lynda Morgan | Iowa: Jim Hudson |
| Kansas: Susan Thacker | Kentucky: Rich Muny |
| Louisiana: Brian Brinser | Maine: Curt Fletcher |
| Maryland: Bruce Seidel | Massachusetts: Randall Castonguay |
| Michigan: Dave Crocker | Minnesota: Matt Werden |
| Mississippi: Bill Goff | Missouri: Nancy Krause |
| Montana: Mike Barger | Nebraska: Dave Willman |
| Nevada: Ken Illgen | New Hampshire: Patrick Fleming |
| New Jersey: Bill Brottman | New Mexico: TBA |
| New York: Vincent Papasodero | North Carolina: Paul Boome |
| North Dakota: Todd Anderson | Ohio: Donshey Peoples |
| Oklahoma: Greg Peters | Oregon: Nick Wellman |
| Pennsylvania: Tripp Amick | Rhode Island: Andrew Knutton |
| South Carolina: John Ridgeway | South Dakota: Vincent Amato |
| Tennessee: Dwayne Mann | Texas: TBA |
| Utah: Ryan Wilkinson | Vermont: C. David Sawyer |
| Virginia: Jeff Gregson | Washington: Lee Rousso |
| West Virginia: Robert Walker | Wisconsin: Steven Verrett |
| Wyoming: Daniel Prevedel |
The directors will be responsible for monitoring poker-related issues and events in their states and alerting the national PPA office to emerging trends or issues. Part of their job will also be to recruit new members for the PPA, organize groups of local PPA members to attend poker-related events or rallies, contact their elected officials and serve as a spokesperson for local media.
The PPA also plans to help state directors set up state PPA committees that will help strengthen the organization's grassroots efforts in the future.
The State Directors program is one component of the PPA's aggressive campaign to boost member benefits, augment its grassroots efforts and position the organization and its members as a strong voice in national, state and local policy debates.
To further enhance its campaign for poker rights, the PPA will be launching a political action committee, a voter registration campaign, a new Web site and new membership incentives later this spring.
Currently the PPA, which is a nonprofit membership organization, has more than 900,000 online and offline poker players and enthusiasts as members who have joined together to promote the game of poker and protect poker players' rights.
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Back for Moore: Wynn Classic finds winner
In the starring role was Chris Moore, who finished in third place at the 2007 Wynn Classic. The online cash game player from Illinois got his money in with two pair last year against eventual champion Zachary Hyman's pair and straight draw. The river brought an ace to send Moore home without the title.
Apparently that stuck in his craw.
Moore emerged victorious at the Wynn this year, but his path was a difficult one. He entered the final table in third place, trailing Larry Wright and chip leader Ryan Young.
The latter won one of six $1,500 NLHE bracelets up for grabs at last year's WSOP after coming in with the chip lead and employing solid, well-timed aggression to stay ahead of the pack. Moore would need to rock the same kind of game if he wanted to avenge his loss the year before.
Moore doubled up short stack Jace Markgraf just before the end of the day's first level, losing a race with A-K to Markgraf's TT. Markgraf then scored the first scalp of the day, sending professional poker player Eugene Todd out in ninth place with QQ to Todd's TT.
Young continued to build his lead by picking up orphan pots and showing down strong hands, until Moore changed the tenor of the proceedings altogether. With a pot the size of the average stack in the middle of the table and the board reading #Td-#Ts-#9d-#5s-#Jc, Young checked and Moore wasted no time moving all-in.
The bracelet winner went in the tank and eventually mucked; Moore sent a statement to both his opponent and the table when he flipped up Q-3 for the stone cold bluff and scooped his way into the position of the chip leader.
The rest of Level 17 consisted of big pots featuring Ryan Young as he scrambled to get back ahead of the pack. He doubled up Ardavan Yazdi when his jacks failed to hold up, doubled back up into contention with AA against QQ, and doubled Markgraf's stack with K-9 against Markgraf's A-J.
Despite all the action there were no knockouts until the middle of Level 18, when freeroll winner Alemu Tesema moved his three-big-blind stack in with J-9 and fell in eighth place to Blake Cahail's T-3.
Ryan Young's roller-coaster ride continued in that level with a lucky break. Ricky Chow got his money in good with JJ to Young's TT, but the ten on the flop left Chow with seventh-place money.
Young then came out on top of a pre-flop raising war against Moore, narrowing his chip lead some and setting the stage for later confrontations.
Larry Wright was next to go in Level 18. Despite coming into the day second in chips, Wright was inactive at the table and found himself short-stacked and surrounded by aggressive players. He got in on the wrong end of a coin flip with K-Q to Cahail's 8-8, finishing in sixth place when he failed to improve. Wright's elimination closed out the level.
The tournament's 19th level began with a bang. The $10,000/$20,000 blinds and $2,000 antes built an enticing pot on every hand. Markgraf lost his tournament life in an attempt to steal, open-shoving with Q-8 and being called down by Young's K-Q to finish in fifth place. Then Yazdi tried to pick up the pot pre-flop with 3-3; he ran into Cahail's QQ to wind up taking fourth place.
Down to the final three, Moore found himself in a different position than he had the previous year. He held a solid chip lead over Young and Cahail, and even more importantly he had position on the aggressive Young. His situation improved further when Cahail missed a chance to bluff and Moore took down a substantial heads-up pot from him with just jack-high.
When play became heads-up, though, it was Young who held the chip lead after doing the dirty work of eliminating Cahail in third place with JJ against Q-T. The $472,000 difference in chips wouldn't last long, though.
Just a few hands into heads-up play, Young fell victim to the designs of fate. Pokerlistings.com's veteran tournament reporter Matthew Showell described the hand:
"In one of the first hands of heads-up play Ryan Young has been crippled in a rough setup of a hand. Young opened from the button to $50,000 and Moore made the call from the big blind. The flop came down #Js-#8d-#5s and Moore checked. Young bet out $100,000 and Moore check-raised to $400k.
"Young then moved all-in and Moore snap-called, laying #Jd-#5d down on the felt. Young was behind with #Ah-#Jh for top pair, top kicker, and would need a lot of help to win the hand. The board finished out with no help whatsoever for Young and Moore is good for the double. He's now in a commanding position with $3.2 million to Young's $500,000."
Moore never let his foot off the gas after the big swing in momentum, finishing Young off with KK against A-5 for the win.
In the end the chips fell as follows:
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | Chris Moore | $692,286 |
| 2nd | Ryan Young | $355,020 |
| 3rd | Black Cahail | $177,510 |
| 4th | Ardavan Yazdi | $95,855 |
| 5th | Jace markgraf | $71,004 |
| 6th | Larry Wright | $53,253 |
| 7th | Ricky Chow | $44,378 |
| 8th | Alemu Tesema | $35,502 |
| 9th | Eugene Todd | $31,952 |
You can relive all the magic of Chris Moore's redemption song, from Day 1 to the final table, in Matthew Showell's updates in our Live Tournaments section.
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