Two major poker tours premiered their newest live tournament stops over this last weekend, and though both have thus far proved vastly different in many ways, the two do share the characteristic of most likely seeming downright nippy to the majority of Vegas and LA pros who chose to attend.

These two tournaments, one in America’s heartland in Lawrenceburg, Indiana- the World Poker Tour’s “Hollywood Poker Open”- and the other half a world away in the Austrian Alps- the PokerStars European Poker Tour’s “Snowfest”- both sported outside temperatures in the low forties and good local skiing (though one hesitates to compare the internationally recognized Austrian Alps with Lawrenceburg’s "slightly" smaller Perfect North Slopes) yet few probably noticed as most of the attention was on the major tournaments going on inside, where many highly recognizable pros sat down for a chance at an inaugural major poker tour title.

The WPT Hollywood Poker Open attracted 144 players when it began Saturday in Indiana, including such big names as Carlos Mortensen, Erick Lindgren, Kathy Liebert, Vanessa Rousso, Steve Sung, Gavin Smith, Hoyt Corkins and Bryan “Devo” Devonshire.  Currently in the midst of day 3, that event has now shed most of those players and is down to less than 30, with World Series of Poker Circuit champion Dwyte Pilgrim, leading the final pack with over 350,000 in tournament chips.  This event is a $10,000 buy-in and will begin distributing a total prize pool worth more than $1.3 million, when play gets down to 12 players.  Updates on the Hollywood Poker Open, as well as current chip counts, can be found at www.worldpokertour.com.

The slightly cheaper EPT Snowfest, with a 3,750 EUR buy-in, began a day later and after two starting heats was able to announce today a total group of 546 players, which generated a total prize pool worth €1,853,680 (about $2,512,000).  This event also had a good share of poker celebrities sign up to play including Daniel Negreanu, Evelyn Ng, Sorel Mizzi, Max Pescatori, Alex Kravchenko and Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier.  According to live reports available on the PokerStars blog, Elky has unfortunately already been eliminated, along with hundreds of others during yesterday's Day 1a, and a good portion of today's Day 1b.

Players unlucky enough to bust out of this first ever Snowfest event, still have the option of hitting the slopes as they wait to see who will end up on top (so to speak) in the Austrian Alps on Friday, but unfortunately those still in Indiana aren’t quite so lucky, according to the most recent Perfect North Slope Ski Report, due to temperatures soon reaching- a much more manageable- 60 degrees, and a chance of more rain, that resort is pretty much done for the season.