Yachting Journal

• Photo by Keith Cacioppo

• Photo by Keith Cacioppo

• Photo by Keith Cacioppo

• Photo by Keith Cacioppo

• Photo by Keith Cacioppo

• Photo courtesy Keith Cacioppo

Once more renowned for picking strawberries not royal flushes, Livingston Parish now hosts Louisiana’s largest poker powerboat run, Tickfaw 200, bringing performance powerboaters to the bayou state in springtime.

Powerboat Poker Run

• Nov 26, 2019 - Powerboating In Paradise TV & Powerboating in Paradise Magazine Boating Poker Runs in Florida and beyond! See more ideas about poker run, power boats, florida.
• Boostane powerboat poker run to cuba nov 14, 2020. Watch as the boostane team leads the first-ever powerboat poker run from key west, florida to havana, cuba. Lake erie thunderfest 2021 returns to put-in-bay. The lake erie thunderfest offshore poker run returns to “b” dock at put-in-bay’s downtown boat docks.
• Over the years as an editor of Powerboat, I was able to travel to a poker run here and there, but never more than two or three in a year. And while I spent a good amount of time meeting and interviewing unfamiliar people within the boating public—essentially our readers—I focused just as much on talking with the organizers and the industry.
• Miami Boat Show Poker Run, Miami, FL Florida Powerboat Club (954) 545-1414 jackie@flpowerboat.com www.flpowerboat.com. March 22-25 Tampa Bay Poker Run, Tampa Bay, FL Florida Powerboat Club (954) 545-1414 jackie@flpowerboat.com www.flpowerboat.com. April 18-22 20th Annual Desert Storm Poker Run and Shootout Lake Havasu City, AZ.

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“It’s the Baja 500 and the Iditarod of powerboating,” said Keith Cacioppo, a lifelong boater with a 30-foot cruiser who’s attended The Tickfaw 200 for 11 straight years.
Cacioppo has never run the 200, but is one of hundreds of spectator boats charging the event with energy and cheers.
“My boat couldn’t handle it,” said Cacioppa. “This is for the big dogs. I’ve been a boater all my life. I loved going to the NOLA Lakefront, watching Al Copeland run his famous Popeye’s boat. After Katrina, I moved to Springfield. I was blown away seeing boats as far away as Alaska and California, including the whole east coast and all southern states. I took a ride on a 42-foot Fountain and the roar of the engines had me hook, line and sinker.”
With 300 cards sold, nearly that many performance powerboaters provide exhilarating action, rumbling through eight locations amid fishing and magnificent wildlife in the bayous, swamps and marshes extending from brackish waters.
Drawing cards for a poker hand, the run departs from Blood River Landing with the first stop to draw a card on the Tickfaw River’s Prop Stop, continuing to Lagniappe and Canal Bank Bar on the Diversion Canal, then to Gators Den in beautiful Manshac, before looping back south to Riverside Bar and Morton’s in Madisonville. Then the course allows boaters to zoom straight across Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans' legendary West End Canal to The Blue Crab. The route then continues east on Lake Pontchartrain to The Blind Tiger in Slidell, with the last card drawn at Shaggy’s Pass Harbor in Pass Christian, MS.
While not a timed event, the testosterone, horsepower and eye candy of the finest collection of Cigarettes and Fountains makes for a fun 200 mile course. A $100 donation buys a hand. Each participant is given a brown envelope with a map and compass readings of hot spots with instructions to pull one card each contained in a sealed, white envelope. At the 7:30PM deadline at Blood River Landing, all participants return to open their cards, choosing their five best hands.

Challenging current and tides make the Tickfaw River tricky to navigate.
“This is not your typical poker run,” said Cacioppa. “Its twisting, turning bayous and lakes can turn up six footers on any given day. By the time you’ve completed the 200 you’re white knuckled at the wheel.”

• Alaska • California • East Coast

The Miami Boat Show Poker Run was in full swing and YouTube channel Wavy Boats was on hand to catch all the action!

For the uninitiated I’ll start with “What is a poker run”?

Powerboat Poker Runs On Youtube

This sums it up, from Discover Boating:

But what if, they surmised, the long ride had several stops and at each stop participants picked up a playing card before riding to the next one—all with the goal of coming away with best five-card stud poker hand in the group? And what if the holder of that hand—or the top three holders of the top three hands—came away with some kind of prize?

Would that add to enhance the fun of the rally? The answer was a definitive yes and the popularity of motorcycle rallies with poker-run format skyrocketed. So it was only natural they would find their way into the go-fast powerboating world, and that was exactly what happened in the early 1990s when Canadian Bill Taylor founded Poker Runs America and launched a series of events. By the end of the decade, Stu Jones, another Canadian who had immigrated to the United States, founded the Florida Powerboat Club, which launched its own series of poker runs.

The Florida Powerboat Club is still thriving—as you’d guess from the name of the outfit—all of its poker runs are in the Sunshine State.

Florida Powerboat Poker Run Girls

The Miami Boat Show Poker Run features all the biggest names in the performance powerboat industry. The event kicks off after the Miami International Boat Show. The boats leave from the Haulover Marine Center and head out to the Atlantic via Haulover Inlet.

What Is A Boat Poker Run

For this year’s Poker Run we have 3 things that make for amazing footage, a nice chop on the water, a chopper filming chasing and filming, and serious horsepower. We won’t go through each boat here, just click on the video below and enjoy! Let us know which was your favorite!

Want to see more speed?

Check out this 1600hp Nor-tech powering through the waves