San Pedro Poker Club pays out more than $184,000

The PIT is proud to promote the San Pedro Poker Club at Keith’s Poker Room

Established in 2025 as a semi-private game with the ultimate goal of developing the skills and strategies necessary to become quality tournament players, the San Pedro Poker Club began with 8 relatively inexperienced hold-em players. By strictly adhering to the general rules of the game and routinely observing universally accepted rules of poker etiquette, we prepared ourselves to be able to play at any table, anywhere in the world and not only engage in quality poker, but do so assuredly and comfortably. We welcomed hold-em "virgins" and brought many new players to the game. To date, the SPPC has had 264 players join our tournaments. 

To help achieve our goals, it was decided to keep stats on every player and publish them weekly. The top 11 players at the end of the year earned seats at the Grand Year End Tournament, which included a percentage of all tournaments played during the year. The top players are determined by money winnings, cash percentage and tournament points. 

We also decided to keep tournament buy-ins very low, primarily to encourage new players. It has been interesting to watch the transformation made by new players from raw beginners to seasoned players; and we boast many. As a point-in-fact, when Casino Belize first opened, they hosted an open invitation hold-em tournament, which brought in 40+ entrants, six of those from the SPPC. At the final table, four of those six remained and 2 cashed.   

Since the inception of the SPPC, we have held 1093 tournaments and have paid out $184,613 in tournament prizes. Our top player is clearly Jules Escalante who garnered Player of the Year for 2025, 2025 and 2025, and is the number one contender for 2025. Rashell Newton received POY in 2025. Other honorable mentions are Kelsey Bloom (top money 2025), Keith Newton (highest cash percentage 2025) and Rick Bushong (highest cash percentage 2025, so far). 

The game is still semi-private with new players being accepted by a majority vote of the currently active players – in other words, you have to know somebody to get in the game. Long-live Texas Hold-em.

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