Category Archives: Poker Calendar

#PNWPokerCal Planner for 27 July 2016

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A little later post for today’s Planner than usual due to a last-minute engagement last night, but worry not, I’m not going away for a while.

Poker Portland

Despite all the gloom and doom, there is still poker being played in town. I haven’t made the rounds of all of the clubs, but I dropped in on Monday at Final Table for their 11am tournament, which has now been bumped up to a $1,500 guarantee (from $1,000). The format has changed somewhat since May, with two live rebuys ($20 for each buyin) rather than felted rebuys. I hate live rebuys, but I like 11am. What can you do? They got 31 players, 32 rebuys, and 23 addons (also $20), for a prize pool of $1,720 and $695 for 1st. Just missed the money there.

Tuesday was The Game. I got there not long after opening while the single table they had was running 1/1 NLHE, didn’t get seated until just before noon when the game switches to 1/2. A couple of players wandered in after 1pm and went on the list. No second table by the time I left before 2pm.

Earlier today I made my first trip back to Portland Meadows since I got back a week ago. Their noon $1,500 guarantee started off with just a single table, but was up to 38 entries with 10 rebuys ($30 each) by the time I busted in round 5 (no rebuy for me today). They were still under the guarantee, but only by $60 and there was still another 30 minutes left before the break for rebuys and addons. On the way there, I drove by Aces Full (site down for maintenance, it says, and the last item on their official Facebook page is from June, but there was an A-board out front and the ‘OPEN’ sign was on).

Fall Coast Poker Classic Satellites

Every Sunday noon through September 4th, there’s a 1 Seat guaranteed tournament for the Main Event of the Fall Coast Poker Classic at Chinook Winds in Lincoln City. According to Devin Sweet, who’s worked the last couple of Chinook Winds series as a tournament official, the poker room has been moved upstairs.

Photo via Devin Sweet/NW Poker Facebook group.

Details for the series are not yet available on the Chinook Winds web site, but you can check out the NW Poker Facebook link above for a look at the schedule. The Main Event satellites are $20 buyin with a $10 entry fee and $10 dealer appreciation fee, $20 rebuys through level 4 and a $20 addon at level 4. The buyins are for 10K chips, and according to the info on the web site, the dealer appreciation (half the cost of the buyin) only gets you 1K in chips, which seems odd, so check at the desk to make sure it’s not a typo. The addon is 20K. Each Main Event seat is $550 dollars.

Deal of the Week: Surviving the Bike

The WPT Legends of Poker starts its month-long run Thursday at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. There are a number of interesting events on the schedule, but some items that caught my budget-conscious eye are coming up in the next couple of weeks.

Event 14 is a $240 buyin $500K guarantee with two days of play and five days of entry flights (with two flights per day). 10% of the players from each of the flights go to Day 2. Everyone who makes Day 2 gets $400. You can play more than one flight and if you qualify twice, you get $2K. You can buy directly into Day 2 for $1,750, and there are two mega satellites for Day 2 entry ($200 buyin).

The last two flights for the $500K run on 9 August at noon and 5:30pm. Day 2 is 10 August. Also on 10 August is a $365 Survivor, with a $3K payout for the top 10%. Roundtrip flight to LAX midweek is less than $300 right now, you can take a couple shots at the $500K with a backup for the Survivor (and/or a satellite for the $4K WPT Main Event  the night of the 10th) for about $1,500 plus the cost of a room.

This Week In Portland Poker

Big events are a bit leaner these days. I haven’t spotted any special events this week, but here’s a few items.

  • Friday night at 7pm at Final Table is an $8K guarantee with $40 buyin, 2 live rebuys, and a $40 addon. Next week will be the First Friday $20K, which the July schedule on the site says is $100 with a live rebuy and $50 addon. but which the home page says will be $60 with 2 live rebuys and $40 addon for the 5 August event.
  • The Portland Meadows schedule has a $10K scheduled for Saturday at noon ($70 entry/reentry and $40 addon) and a $5K noon Sunday ($50 buyin and reentry, $30 addon).

Follow @pokermutant on Twitter to get updates on late-breaking specials.

Only a Day Away

  • The Ante Up Poker Tour World Championship continues at Thunder Valley. This weekend is the Monolith (everyone’s going for names inspired by the Colossus, but this just reminds me of 2001), a $250K guarantee with a $425 buyin. There are two flights on Friday (11am and 4pm) and a morning flight on Saturday, with Day 2 on Sunday. Sunday also has a $10K Bounty tournament. Monday is a $5K HORSE event, and two satellites into next wee’s $100K Action 8, NLHE 8-Max tournament ($250 buyin) Next Wednesday is a $20K NLHE 6-Max event, then a 2-day $400 buyin Heads Up tournament on Thursday. Next Friday and Saturday are entry days for the $500K Main Event ($1,650 buyin).
  • This weekend at the WPT Legends of Poker opening is a $200K eventwith six starting flights over three days (Friday through Sunday). $240 buyin with direct buyin on Day 2 (Monday) for $1,500. Next week includes a number of single-day events, including the odd mixture of Big O/Omaha 8/Stud 8 (next Thursday, $235 entry). A week from Friday is the beginning of Event 14, mentioned in the Deal section above.
  • The Tulalip $10K added tournament and Muckleshoot $3K added game are both on Sunday.
  • The Summer SuperStack at Calgary’s Deerfoot Inn kicks off on 10 August. The first event is a C$550 buyin with three starting days.
  • 10 August is also the start of the Venetian August Weekend Extravaganza. The big event is a three entry day $80K for $250. They are partnering with the Bicycle Casino to award seats to the Mega Millions event running during the Legends of Poker.

#PNWPokerCal Planner for 20 July 2016

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I’m Baaaack!

I go away for a couple of months and you guys break Portland poker? I can’t leave you alone for a minute!

Seriously, though, I’m a bit sad that after talking up the Portland poker scene for weeks with fellow media, players, and others that near the end of the WSOP the biggest club in town shuts its doors almost overnight. Whatever issues there were with The Club Formerly Known as Encore, I had my two largest-ever cashes there (even though they didn’t report them to Hendon Mob), I had my first-ever cash over $1K there, and it’s where I had my first outright win in a $100+ buyin tournament.

For now, though it looks like the other clubs are operating as usual. I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that they’re still there when I get home tonight.

Limon

Abe ‘Limon’ is the host of a regular 5/5 PLO game at Commerce Casino in LA, the co-host of Poker Central’s Live at the Bike show Wednesday nights, and the man behind the #PokerSesh (streamed live by Live at the Bike’s Twitch channel on Mondays). I’ve been a guest on #PokerSesh a few times over the past two years, Limon used my research skills to win a $5K prop bet during last year’s WSOP, and we grew up just a few miles (and a few years) apart in Eugene-Springfield. Finally got a chance to meet up at Angel City Brewing in LA (and get my $250) while I was on my way home from Vegas. He’s been very supportive of my writing—mostly because he hates tournament poker—and it was great to get the chance to meet up with him.

Monster Podcast

Mitchell Towner, the winner of the WSOP Monster Stack, was quoted in the official write-up giving props to “some of the podcast guys,” and elaborated in other interviews that specifically he meant whatever it is that Grant Denison and Adam Levy are calling their podcast this week. In the July 14th edition, titled “How to Run a Monster Bluff,” it is revealed that Towner was the college roommate of one of the Poker Guys. Listen to the episode to find out which (I don’t really know, they’re starting to sound so much alike to each other I can’t tell them apart).

#PDXPokerCal

I’m shortening the hashtag. Five extra characters available in my tweets!

This Week in Portland Poker

  • PDX Poker Club is no more. But you know that.
  • A&L Sports Pub is jumping into the triple Omaha format with a $3K guarantee Big O/PLO/PLO8 tournament on Saturday at noon. $40 entry/reentry. $30 addon. Chadd is saying something in the comments on the FB post about reenteries being able to buy a double stack for $80, not sure if that applies to original entry or not. Why make these things so obscure? BTW, I still hate FB as a means for getting info out.
  • Portland Meadows Poker Club has stepped up with a $10K guarantee tournament at noon on Saturdays ($70 entry/$40 addon) and a noon $5K ($50 buyin/$30 addon) on Sundays. Not technically special events, but new to the #PDXPokerCal.
  • The Game still has their June calendar up.
  • If you want to make the final table of next year’s WSOP Millionaire Maker, maybe you’d better start playing now at Claudia’s daily tournament.

meridith

Only a Day Away

  • The Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza finishes this weekend in Las Vegas. Thursday, Friday , and Saturday are $400 flights into a $200K guarantee with the final day on Sunday. The evening schedule is $300 and $200 (mostly bounty) tournaments.
  • Are you in the LA area? Then you still have time to get to the Hustler Casino’s Grand Slam of Poker. Thursday at 4pm and 7pm are $100 satellites for the $400 buyin $500K guarantee main event. That has two starting flights per day, Friday through Tuesday, with a final day on Wednesday.
  • Today is the start of the Wildhorse Summer Poker Rodeo in Pendleton. Five events Wednesday through Sunday. All at noon. Last year these events got about 275 players each, with prize pools ranging from $17K on Sunday (the smallest) to $80K for the $300 event on Saturday.
  • Thunder Valley outside of Sacramento kicks off the Ante Up Poker Tour World Championship tomorrow with the $155 buyin $100K Catapult tournament. Five starting flights Thursday through Saturday, with final on Sunday. The series has 20 events and multiple satellites, with the main event being a $500K guarantee $1,650 buyin the first weekend of August.
  • At LA’s Bicycle Casino next Thursday, the Legends of Poker gets under way with a 2-day $100K guarantee, $350 buyin freezeout. It runs through the end of August and culminates in a $4K buyin WPT televised event.
  • The last Sunday of the month is 31 July. At 11am there’s a $10K added $275 event at Tulalip Casino north of Seattle. At noon the same day is a $330 buyin $3K added tournament at Muckleshoot Casino, southeast of Seattle.

Check out the #PNWPokerCal for more poker. It’s good to be back!

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 1 June 2016

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WSOP

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Oh, and the first day of the 2016 World Series of Poker. Live action, single table satellites, and Daily Deepstacks got under way yesterday, but the first bracelet event of the series—the Casino Employees NLHE—starts at 11am. Start it right with Total.

Portland Meadows Regular Schedule

Now that their big $100K capper to the opening series was a success, the new Portland Meadows Poker Room is kicking off their regular schedule with the (so far) largest daily noon tournament guarantee: $2.5K.

Just a note to everyone. Facebook is not a great option for posting information. It makes it difficult to find information for people who aren’t already subscribed to your page. And if you’re going to tell users of your web page to “CLICK ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE FOR ENTIRE WEEKLY SCHEDULE,’ then put a damn link on the web page to your Facebook page.

IMG_2794W-Day

Despite my promise to myself that I was going to ramp back on writing for the blog, I started a daily recap of my next seven weeks in Las Vegas as a live reporter for the WSOP. We’ll see how long that motivation lasts. In the first couple of installments (“Let There Be Light” and “Leaving Money On the Table”), I recap getting here and cashing in one of the Venetian’s Survivor tournaments.

This Week in Portland Poker

  • PDX Poker Club is running a special for players in their weekday noon $2K NLHE tournaments: Show up before the game starts and you get a $10 free door fee card, $10 off a joint (you’ve got to love the Portland poker scene), and free coffee. Offer good until they pull it. They’re also adding $500 in house money to the prize pool of the noon tournament through Friday.
  • Just going to mention Rialto and Claudia’s and Brekken’s for a change. No specials that I’m aware of.

Only a Day Away

  • This weekend’s big event at the Venetian’s Deepstack Extravaganza is a $600 buyin $250K guarantee, with starting flights Saturday and Sunday mornings. Sunday evening is a $600 PLO8 tournament with a $60K guarantee.
  • A lot of grumbling at the Planet Hollywood Goliath 2016 after they rescinded the guarantee on the opening event after a number of players had already scheduled trips. The amount on version 3 of the schedule was dropped from $150K to $100K, and “guaranteed” was changed to “estimated.” This weekend’s $1M event still says “guaranteed.”
  • The Grand Poker Series at Golden Nugget hosts Poker Night in America this weekend. Ladies first!
  • As mentioned, the first day of the WSOP is today. This weekend will be consumed with the Colossus II. Also of note is the $10K Seven Card Stud Saturday afternoon, Sunday’s Top Up Turbo NLHE, which lets you win extra chips online at WSOP.com, and the Dealers Choice 6-Handed, also on Sunday. Tuesday is HORSE  and next Wednesday is 6-Handed NLHE.
  • The Bicycle Casino Summer Poker Series starts today.
  • The Wynn Summer Classic starts tomorrow.
  • Binions starts a series Friday.
  • Coming up Tuesday is Bay 101 Summer Madness, with a series of mostly $350 buyin tournaments through 12 June. Mega satellites on Sunday and Monday get you seats to the whole series.
  • The new Medford Poker Club has a Grand Opening 10 June. If you’re down south, drop in for a look.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 25 May 2016

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Third-Level Thinking

The title of my last article at PokerNews before the start of the WSOP makes it sound like it ’s only applicable to the Colossus II tournament the first weekend of series, but it applies to all of the NLHE events with buyins of $1K or less. Bringing antes up from Level 5 to Level 3 and shortening the length of levels in tournaments under $1K, makes it imperative to build up your stack in the first hour of play.

3rd_level_pokernews

Part Time Poker

The poker news (as opposed to PokerNews) web site Part Time Poker started a weekly podcast a couple of months ago, hosted by Andrew (@abarber1) Barber—the winner of last year’s $10K HORSE WSOP bracelet—and game designer Alex (@benefactumgames) Weldon, who’s written a number of data-driven articles similar to mine (but better). Alex just did an article based on a poll Daniel Negreanu posted the other day asking people to guess the age of the Main Event winner.

When I tweeted out a link to his article and mentioned that I’d done a piece on the age of November Niners last year, he invited me to be on the podcast tonight, where we’ll be talking about that subject, as well as apparently the Hearthstone v. Poker challenge played yesterday on Poker Central’s Twitch channel.

So look for that to be up sometime Thursday.

Deal Of the Month: Kenny Hallaert’s WSOP Schedule Spreadsheet

Belgian pro Kenny Hallaert’s the only player who gets regular billing here at Mutant Poker, because he is, in part, an inspiration for the Planner. His name graces the #PNWPokerCalendar page every day, due to the immense amount of work he’s done for the past several years putting together a spreadsheet of events from all of the series running in Las Vegas.

The Schedule tab of the spreadsheet has the series in columns, with dates on the rows. Each event’s start time is shown, with event number, late registration cutoff (if available), description, and buyin. WSOP events are linked to the structure sheets, as are some others.

WSOP2016schedule1

A second tab has Daily Tournaments at the series venues listed by time of day.

Of interest to non-Holdem players is the Non std. NLH MTT tab, which breaks out NLHE events that aren’t full ring (like 6-Max and Shootout) events, Omaha games, Mixed, Draw, Limit NLHE, Stud, Ladies, and Seniors in one location, organized by type of game and date.

There’s a General Info tab with links to schedules and structures. A tab breaking out Rake by buyin and venue. And a final List tab with all of the events organized by date and price. If you’re in town on 1 June and you’ve got $250, you can look there and find out that (apart from the many, many cash games or regular daily tournaments in town) you could play one of three NLHE tournaments at Planet Hollywood (11am for a $25K, 4pm for a $5K turbo, or 7pm—$160, $130, and $100, respectively). Or you could try the $240 HORSE game at 11am at Golden Nugget.

WSOP2016schedule2

This Week in Portland Poker

  • The Portland Meadows Poker Room Championship Poker Series, continues through the weekend. Today is the first non-NLHE event, a $1.5K PLO tournament at noon (my last Portland poker for almost two months), with a $5K NLHE Monster Stack at 7pm. Tomorrow is the $1.5K NLHE Senior (50+) that includes an entry to the WSOP Seniors event and $500 travel money for 1st place (noon), then at 7pm is the $3K Big O tournament. Friday at noon is a satellite to Saturday’s series Main Event; at 7pm there’s a $30K NLHE game. The last call is Saturday at noon for the $100K NLHE  tournament, the last big thing in Portland before the start of the WSOP.
  • PDX Poker Club is running a special for players in their weekday noon $2K NLHE tournaments: Show up before the game starts and you get a $10 free door fee card, $10 off a joint (you’ve got to love the Portland poker scene), and free coffee. Offer good until they pull it. But the notice for the goodies only appears on the old Encore Club site.
  • Wednesdays and Sundays are New Player Days at The Game, with house-sponsired high hands in their shootouts. Wednesdays at 2pm is a $1.5K NLHE tournament; at 2pm on Sunday is an $800 NLHE freeroll.
  • Big O for those of you for whom two cards are not enough, at The Players Club on Friday night at 6pm. Also Sunday at 3pm.

Only a Day Away

  • Tomorrow is Day 1I for the Rivercard $150K at Pala Casino north of San Diego. There are daily entry flights (except for Mondays and Tuesdays) through Saturday. Day 2 on Sunday.
  • Friday at the Gardens Poker Festival  is a $50K NLHE no addon/rebuy tournament. The $75K NLHE Main Event is Monday (also no rebuy/addon).
  • Day 2 of the $100K guarantee Hydra at Sacramento’s Stones Gambling Hall is Saturday, but if you made it to Day 2 over the last weekend you probably already knew that.
  • Jason Somerville’s Run It Up Reno got going yesterday at the Peppermill Casino. There are 3 starting flights on Friday and Saturday for the 3-day $150K NLHE Main Event.
  • The Deepstack Extravaganza at The Venetian starts tomorrow. The kickoff is a $100K NLHE tournament with starting days Thursday through Saturday for $400 buyin.
  • The May Showdown at Vancouver’s River Rock Casino starts today with a C$220 buyin event. C$330 Turbo on Thursday, and two entry days on Friday and Saturday to the C$550 Main Event, with Day 2 on Sunday.
  • There’s a $150K NLHE Quantum Reload tournament at Planet Hollywood tomorrow with two starting flights Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, to start the Goliath 2016 series. Buyins increase each day ($130, $240, and $350, respectively) with 10%, 12%, and 15% of the field getting through to Day 2. Or you can buy in direct to Day 2 for $1.1K. They’re also running a number of satellites to the WSOP Employee over the weekend, and Tuesday is the first of two Exposed NLHE Hosted by Dutch Boyd tournaments, where you have to show both cards face up when you fold, which should be kind of interesting.
  • If you’re still in the PNW, Tulalip and Muckleshoot have their big last-Sunday-of-the-month games at 11am and noon, respectively.
  • Got $300K? Then you can enter to play Sunday’s Super High Roller Bowl (I’m sure legal pot sellers are just itching to sponsor this one; super high!) at Aria.
  • The Grand Poker Series at Golden Nugget runs three or more events most days starting next Tuesday.
  • Tuesday is the start of cash game action at the Rio for the WSOP. Daily Deepstacks start Tuesday as well. The first bracelet event is the Casino Employees event next Wednesday; the first open bracelet event is Colossus II next Thursday.
  • Over in LA, the Bicycle Casino Summer Poker Series starts next Wednesday with a $15K NLHE tournament. It runs all through June.
  • The Wynn Summer Classic starts on a week from tomorrow.
  • Binions joins the fray a week from Friday.
  • Coming up 5 June is Bay 101 Summer Madness, with a series of mostly $350 buyin tournaments through 12 June.
  • The new Medford Poker Club has a Grand Opening 10 June. If you’re down south, drop in for a look.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 18 May 2016

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Wild Kingdom

I published the last hands of my Wild Kingdom series on Monday. It’s an all-cards exposed examination of a Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Bounty tournament. There’s an index to all of the posts in the series (each covering about 20 hands). Shorter reading than the 300+ hands in the NLHE 6-Max series I did back in February and March, but more cards!

Portland Meadows Poker Room Is Open

The first tournament at the latest entry into the Portland poker market was played on Monday at noon in North Portland. New tables, new chairs, new space, though you might want to wear a jacket on cooler days as Portland Meadows is a big building with some draft coming in through the doors.

photo by Alex Ratchkov via Facebook

The first event drew 62 entries. It was a semi-freezeout with addons but no rebuys; the first prize pool was $3,440. The Poker Mutant was the second player out with jacks running into kings, but…

photo by Portland Meadows Poker via Facebook

Poker Keyboard Pro

If you use an iPad or iPhone to take notes on hands, you might be interested in an app that adds a keyboard with buttons for the suits, as well as terms like check, bet, straddle, flop, and river. Not sure if I’ll get a chance (or want) to use it in a couple of weeks at the WSOP—it may not be fast enough for some of the freeform notes I’ll need to take—but for a couple of bucks it’s worth checking out.

poker_keyboard

World Series of Poker

The WSOP kicks off in two weeks, with the first bracelet event, the Casino Employees NLHE getting under way on 1 June at 11am. There’s actually action going on the day before, with registration opening 31 May, along with live action and satellites.

If you’re not already aware of it, the WSOP is trying to ease the pain of waiting in lines this year with a couple of changes to the registration and payout processes.

If you’re not playing the Colossus (which starts just two weeks from tomorrow), you may still have time to take advantage of the new online registration process. The WSOP is using a system provided by Bravo—the company that makes the software used for live and tournament poker rooms in Vegas—to handle registration and payment (you can now use credit cards for events of $1.5K and smaller). Once you’ve signed up for the Bravo card and submitted a payment, you go to the Rotunda outside the poker area and do an in-person verification, and you’ll get your registrations for every tournament you’ve pre-registered for. After you’ve done the verification, if you register online for another tournament, you’ll be able to pick up your seat assignments and receipts at kiosks in the Rotunda. You can read more about the process at PokerNews.

As Chad Holloway reported last summer during the Colossus, meant “An hour and a half passed and the line didn’t seem to be making much progress” beginning about 10pm on the night the event hit the money. This year, the WSOP will be paying 15% of the entries, meaning half again as many people from every tournament will be getting into the money. To alleviate the payout problem, the WSOP is installing eQueue kiosks to be used “If excessive lines begin to form.” eQueue sets up a time for when you can go to the payout station and pick up your cash without standing in line.

If you’ve got people back home following you but you’re not likely to be picked up for the chip counts at WSOP.com by the stupid live reporters, you can use the new ChipIn mobile app to update reports on your chip stack that will get published on the site. The app goes live on 1 June and requires you to log in with your Ceasar’s Total Rewards card (which you should have since you need it to get seated at the tournament table).

More about eQueue and ChipIn in the official WSOP announcement.

World Poker Tour Season XV Schedule Announced

Late-breaking news from yesterday afternoon: the WPT’s new schedule is out and one of the first events in the season comes right after the WSOP, at Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles from 28 July to 1 September. Other usual West Coast stops are December’s move into Bellagio in Las Vegas, the January to March Los Angeles Poker Classic at Commerce Casino, and the rest of the California Swing in March at Bay 101 in San Jose and Sacramento’s Thunder Valley.

This Week in Portland Poker

  • Coming up 21 May at 2pm at The Game is a WSOP Main Event satellite event. $100 entry/rebuy and $50 addon and the winner receives a package including a seat and travel to Las Vegas. It’s been on the #PNWPokerCalendar for a couple of weeks; but it’s up against the three-seat tournament just announced at Portland Meadows. Which satellite will reign supreme?
  • Saturday is the beginning of the weeklong Portland Meadows Poker Room Championship Poker Series, covered in the Deal last week. 15 events, kicking off with a noon game with $33K in WSOP Main Event seats guaranteed (each with $1K in travel expenses).
  • Big O for those of you for whom two cards are not enough, at The Players Club on Friday night at 6pm.

Only a Day Away

  • Tomorrow is Day 1D for the Rivercard $150K at Pala Casino north of San Diego. There are daily entry flights (except for Mondays and Tuesdays) through 28 May. Day 2 on 29 May.
  • There are two more flights tomorrow for the Gardens Poker Festival  $500K guarantee tournament.
  • The Deepstack Extravaganza Warm-Up at The Venetian drew 196 players for Day 1A of the $100K guarantee kickoff event. Day 1C is today with Day 2 tomorrow. Tomorrow are two bounty events (noon and 7pm), with Omaha Hi-Lo Friday morning, and two two-day events starting on Friday and Saturday at noon. The Warm-Up ends next Wednesday, with the full Extravaganza starting Thursday.
  • Sacramento’s Stones Gambling Hall hosts the $100K guarantee Hydra tournament with two flights each day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and Day 2 on 28 May.
  • Jason Somerville’s Run It Up Reno starts 24 May at the Peppermill Casino. The first couple of days include a $235 entry with added Main Event seats, an All-In-Or-Fold, a Survivor tournament, and PLO 6-Max.
  • The May Showdown at Vancouver’s River Rock Casino runs 25 to 29 May. Three events: #220 on Wednesday, $330 Turbo on Thursday, and two entry days on Friday and Saturday to the $550 Main Event, with Day 2 on Sunday.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 11 May 2016

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Wild Kingdom

There have been six installments in Wild Kingdom, my all-cards exposed look at a Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Bounty tournament. Yesterday’s post—covering hands 101-120—got the 65-entry game down to 12 players. More on that tomorrow.

Portland Meadows Opening

The Portland Meadows Poker Room had an open house on Kentucky Derby Day, last Saturday. The newly-renovated room opens for business with a noon tournament on Monday, 16 May, with hope of a shootout starting at 1pm. 22 tables will include USB charging stations, the chairs are heavily padded, similar to those at some of the more posh Vegas poker room. There will be food and drink available. Lots of parking (though it was pretty full on Derby Day). Straight in through the main entrance, up a flight of stairs, and up behind the bleachers. They’re closing out the month with a big series (see the Deal for this week).

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Deal of the Day: Portland Meadows Championship Poker Series

 

Portland Meadows Poker Room is getting off to an ambitious beginning, with a 15-event series from 21—28 May, with a total of $200K in guarantees. It culminates in a $100K guarantee ($300 buyin, $100 addon) on 28 May. The opener on 21 May is guaranteeing three $10K+$1K WSOP Main Event packages, including an entry and travel expenses, for $100 entry and $100 addon. Also featured are a $3K 6-Max (24 May), $1.5K PLO (25 May), and a $1.5K Seniors and $3K Big O, both on 26 May.

Kind of kicking myself, because it would be pointless for me to try for the Main Event seats since I’m going to be covering the Main Event as a reporter, and I’m going to miss the last two events in the series because I’ll be on the road to Vegas Memorial Day weekend.

This Week in Portland Poker

  • It hadn’t been announced at press time, but the PDX Poker Club (formerly Encore) schedule has a $20K guarantee Saturday using their $80 buyin/live rebuy, $40 addon structure.
  • Coming up 21 May at 2pm at The Game is a WSOP Main Event satellite event. $100 entry/rebuy and $50 addon and the winner receives a package including a seat and travel to Las Vegas. It’s been on the #PNWPokerCalendar for a couple of weeks; but it’s up against the three-seat tournament just announced at Portland Meadows. Which satellite will reign supreme?

Only a Day Away

  • The Cal State Poker Championship at Commerce Casino culminates this weekend with a $500K guarantee Main Event, with entry days ($1,650 buyin) on Friday and Saturday, and final day Sunday.
  • Saturday is Day 1A for the Rivercard $150K at Pala Casino north of San Diego. There are daily entry flights (except for Mondays and Tuesdays) through 28 May. With Day 2 on 29 May. An entry to the WSOP Main Event is taken out of the prize pool and awarded to the first place finisher.
  • The Gardens Poker Festival starts Sunday with a $350 buyin $500K guarantee tournament.
  • The Deepstack Extravaganza Warm-Up at The Venetian gets going Monday with a $250, 3-day $100K guarantee.
  • Sacramento’s Stones Gambling Hall hosts the $100K guarantee Hydra tournament with two flights each day 20—22 May and Day 2 on 28 May.
  • Jason Somerville’s Run It Up Reno starts 24 May at the Peppermill Casino. The first couple of days include a $235 entry with added Main Event seats, an All-In-Or-Fold, a Survivor tournament, and PLO 6-Max.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 4 May 2016

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Encore Poker Series VIII

Still no results posted for the four EPS events from a couple weeks back, either to Facebook or Hendon Mob.

Encore, by the way, is going through some rebranding this week.

Final Table $100K Guarantee

I was sitting next to Rich when we were still around seven tables. I had an above-average stack with 20+ big blinds and Rich was down to about 6. Then he went on a tear and shot up to a couple hundred thousand in the space of an orbit. Meanwhile, I lost most of my chips (not to Rich) and went out shortly after our table broke. Congratulations to everyone for another great event.

20160430 Final Table $100K payouts

Payouts for the Final Table $100K. There were 240 entrants, with 87 rebuys and 200 addons.

The Last Month

There’s just four weeks—to the day!—before the first open event of the 2016 World Series of Poker, the $7M Guarantee Colossus II. So much to do, so much money to pull together.

As I mentioned in last week’s Planner, I’m going to be in Las Vegas as a live reporter for the WSOP from Memorial Day weekend until mid-July (as of today, I’m sort of still looking for a place to stay, as well, so if you have any leads, send me a message on Twitter). I will attempt to keep the Planner going, but I may cut the Deal until I return to Portland. In any case, things are probably going to be a little truncated for the next couple of months.

Seniors World Championship of Poker

Throwing back to the Deal a few weeks ago which rounded up seniors events during the WSOP:

Wild Kingdom

If you liked A Game That Will Live In Infamy—my equity examination of a 6-Max NLHE tournament—I posted the first 20 hands of a Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo hand-by-hand yesterday. All cards exposed, down to the last hand of the tournament. More tomorrow.

Deal of the Day: Vegas

Let’s just say the Deal for next month is being in Las Vegas. By my count, for most of June, there are six tournament series running: the WSOP, the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza III, Golden Nugget’s Grand Poker Series, the Goliath (WSOP’s younger sibling at Planet Hollywood), Binion’s Poker Classic at the WSOP’s birthplace, and the Wynn Summer Classic.

I could link to all of the individual tournament venues, but those links are all in #PNWPokerCalendar. Instead, here I’ll direct you to Kenny Hallert’s Grand Unified Poker Schedule on Dropbox. It has all of the above, plus the shorter series at Aria, M, and Bellagio, in an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has extra tabs with non-NLHE events, contact info, and rake for each buy-in level. It’s an incredibly detailed piece of work.

The other draw, of course is cash games. Frustrated tournament players need something to do to fill in the hours between games, and the ones with extra money go to the cash tables. Last year during the weekend of the Colossus, I saw morning 1-2 games at Planet Hollywood last year with $800 going into a pot. It was amazing. And PH is just a small poker room in a city of a lot of small poker rooms and some really big poker rooms.

So. Vegas.

This Week in Portland Poker

  • It’s time for another First Friday $20K guarantee at Final Table this week. $100 buyin/rebuy, $50 addon, 7pm.
  • Encore Club has its own $20K this Friday. $80 buyin/live rebuy, $40 addon. This starts at 8pm.
  • See The Game about their Cinco de Mayo complimentary nacho bar Thursday, with $2 Mexican beers and $3 margaritas. For Mother’s Day Weekend, (this Friday through Sunday) there’s a complimentary door fee and some free food and drink items. They’re also offering a drink to the first players seated in the morning game on Friday. Beginning Sunday and next Wednesday, The Game will be contributing $100+ twice a day to a Bad Beat Jackpot. And beginning next Wednesday, they start a weekly $1.5K guarantee tournament at 2pm. Coming up 21 May at 2pm is a WSOP Main Event satellite event. $100 entry/rebuy and $50 addon and the winner receives a package including a seat and travel to Las Vegas. Maybe you’ll meet me there!

Only a Day Away

  • The Cal State Poker Championship at Commerce Casino in LA is in the middle of its run. Tomorrow is the first of two starting days for a $240 buyin $250K guarantee NLHE tournament.
  • Saturday is the start of the WPTDeepstacks Central California, at Turlock Poker Room. Six events, with a $100K Main Event for $1.1K buy-in.
  • Saturday is also the 2nd Annual Central Valley Omaha Championships, an Omaha Hi-Lo tournament with a $160 buy-in. The one I won a seat for in a drawing but couldn’t get into my schedule (Fresno is a looooong drive for a $20K).
  • The 14th is Day 1A for the Rivercard $150K at Pala Casino north of San Diego. There are daily entry flights (except for Mondays and Tuesdays) through 28 May. With Day 2 on 29 May. An entry to the WSOP Main Event is taken out of the prize pool and awarded to the first place finisher.
  • Last week’s Deal, the Gardens Poker Festival starts 15 May with a $350 buyin $500K guarantee tournament.
  • The Deepstack Extravaganza Warm-Up at The Venetian gets going 16 May with a $250, 3-day $100K guarantee.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 27 April 2016

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Pendleton Results (Final)

All of the results have been posted for the Wildhorse Spring Poker Round-Up. This edition of the High Roller (now $1.1K instead of the $2K it started off with in the fall of 2013) garnered 76 entries, for a prize pool of $72.2K. Portland’s Charlie Prom and Jacob Dahl took the top two spots. 341 entered the Main Event, making the prize pool $172K. Andy Su and Jordan Rich or Portland got 2nd and 3rd spots, with La Center’s Brian Thorp  coming in 4th. Kerry Moynahan of Beaverton came in 4th in the all-around points for the series; Charlie Prom got the point winner’s jacket by closing out first place in the High Roller and Event #2, with 439 entries.

The Immediate Future of Mutant Poker

A lot of readers here came aboard last summer, when I started doing daily round-ups of news from Las Vegas under the PNW_WSOP_15 tag. I looked through every payout list, news report, end of day report, seating chart, and blog post I could find on players from Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and, yes, Idaho. Idaho! One blog to rule them all…. Most of my work was done here in Portland, though I was able to spend Colossus weekend in the WSOP Media room (yay!). The info was on the internet, it’s a lot cheaper for me to do the work from home than Vegas. It’s been my intention to do the same thing this upcoming WSOP.

But that’s not going to happen in 2016.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to be giving out useful information on events in Vegas. It’s just not going to be targeted to players from the Pacific Northwest, because I’ll be working as part of the WSOP’s live reporting team. I’ll be working in the Rio for most—if not all—of the seven weeks beginning right after Memorial Day. It’s an exciting opportunity for someone who likes to write about poker, which I do, though you might ask me about that in a couple of months. The long days of a poker reporter are likely to adversely affect how much info I post here through mid-July, but I’ll be back after that. There isn’t a huge amount going on regionally outside Vegas in June, anyway.

Thanks to all my regular readers. I wouldn’t be getting this gig if it wasn’t for the audience. I’ve never kept a diary, because I hate to write for a small audience, and writing just for a readership of one seems a bit masturbatory to me. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just prefer to share my love.) But without knowing that there were people who at least briefly looked at the articles and calendar, I wouldn’t have kept at it, and I wouldn’t be heading to Vegas for as long as I am this year. So pat yourselves on the back.

Meanwhile, I’m just about done with another tournament blow-by-blow, this time of a 65-player Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Bounty tournament. Again, with all cards exposed, and down to the final heads-up hand. That should start later this week.

Just so you know not everything’s peaches and cream, now I’ve got so much stuff to get done in the next month I can’t take advantage of this:

Deal of the Day: Gardens

Sort of out of the blue the other day, I ran across an announcement from The Casino Formerly Known As Hawaiian Gardens Casino. Well it still is, sort of, but it looks like they’re re-branding it as just The Gardens Casino. No telling whether the city of Hawaiian Gardens is getting a name change, but I guess Hawaii just isn’t as exotic as it used to be. Anyway, the Inaugural 2016 Gardens Poker Festival is scheduled for 15 May to 1 June at “The gardens”, and it kicks off with a multi-entry-day $500K guarantee tournament with a $350 entry. Nine entry flights over the first five days of the festival, with the final day of the tournament on 20 May. There are Seniors, Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, “Raise or Fold”, Limit Big O, timed, ladies, heads up, and bounty tournaments. The biggest buy in is $440 for the $25K guarantee 64-player max HU tournament. Looks like some fun.

This Week in Portland Poker

  • Friday night is The Game‘s WSOP Ladies Event tournament, with the winner receiving a tournament entry worth $1K and a travel package to las Vegas. Sunday at noon is an $800 guarantee freeroll.
  • Early in the day on Friday at Portland Players Club/A&L Sports Pub, you can find a Dealers Choice Omaha $1/$1 shootout running at 11am. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a
  • The Final Table’s 3rd Semi-Annual Portland Poker Classic, a $100K guarantee, with a $300 buy in/rebuy and a $100 add on is upon us. 11am Saturday. At 7pm the night before, there’s a $5K guarantee with $20 buy in and $20 pre-add on.

Only a Day Away

  • The Colorado State Poker Championship at Midnight Rose Poker Room runs through Sunday, ending with a $500 Main Event.
  • The Lucky Chances Battle of the Bay still has events with big guarantees for first place. Thursday is a $325 event with a $15K guaranteed first prize. Saturday and Sunday are entry days for the $1,105 Main Event with a $100K first-place prize.
  • Friday is the start of the Cal State Poker Championship at Commerce Casino in LA. Twenty events, running through 15 May, including four $100K guarantees, a $250K guarantee, and a $500K Main Event.
  • 7 May is the start of the WPTDeepstacks Central California, at Turlock Poker Room. Six events, with a $100K Main Event for $1.1K buy-in. And next Saturday is the 2nd Annual Central Valley Omaha Championships, an Omaha Hi-Lo tournament with a $160 buy-in.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 20 April 2016

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Screen Shot 2016-04-14 at 11.12.45 AMProp Bets

My first piece for PokerNews in several months came out the same day as last week’s Planner. I didn’t know exactly when it was going up, so all I could do was tease it last week, but it’s still a decent read, if you want to know how often top players make deep runs in the WSOP Main Event.

The piece was inspired by a question posed to me a couple weeks back by John Finnigan. John and a friend had a bet on the number of players who’d made it to the Top 100 of the Main Event had done it more than once, like John’s buddy, Josh Prager did in 2005 (96th) and 2013 (41st). I believe John came in low and Josh”s original number was high, then he revised it to just about dead-on. You can read the article for the number.

evandroiA prop bet from last year’s Main Event was the basis for an article I published here Monday. $5K was up for grabs between Bryce Yockey and Limon (and me). What is the return on investment (ROI) for 100 player specially selected as winners by Bryce? The answer won’t surprise you if you’ve been reading my articles over the past couple years, but it’s worth a read for the sweat.

Pendleton Results

As of post time, results were in for the first seven events at the Wildhorse Spring Poker Round-Up last week. Angela Jordison did not successfully defend her record of three wins in the first three events from last spring, but nobody won more than one of the first seven this year. Look at the PDF for details (and check the Wildhorse poker page or Hendon Mob for more results as they get posted), but here are some highlights:

  1. $120 NLHE, $3K added. 529 entrants. $53.3K prize pool.
    Winner: Lisa Meredith, Vancouver, $10.7K.
  2. $225 NLHE, $3K added. 439 entrants. $86.4K prize pool.
    Winner: Charlie Prom, Portland, $18.6K.
  3. $225 NLHE. $3K added. 189 entrants. $38.9K prize pool.
    Winner: Michael St. Pierre, Spokane, $8.1K.
  4. $225 Limit Omaha HI-Lo, $3K added. $38.5K prize pool.
    Winner: Steve Chanthabouasy, Happy Valley, $9.4K.
  5. $225 HORSE, $3K added. 118 entrants, $23.6K prize pool.
    Winner: Ted Naff, Bremerton, $6.3K.
  6. $120 NLHE Turbo, $1K added. 133 entrants. $13.6K prize pool.
    Winner: Victor Acevedo, Beaverton, $3.3K.
  7. $225 NLHE Seniors, $3K added. 267 entrants. $53.7K prize pool.
    Winner: Michael Koons, Kennewick, $12.3K.

Deal of the Day: Run It Up Reno

Twitch poker sensation Jason Somerville has taken some pages from Daniel Negreanu‘s book and used what could have been just a Warholian 15 minutes of fame to springboard into a world beyond simply playing poker. Enlisting the power of the Run It Up Legion (as he calls his army of followers), he’s become a commentator for WSOP livestreams, a sometime co-host of the PokerNews Podcast, and last fall, he produced a tournament series in Reno. PokerNews was involved in Run It Up Reno last year—something that showed in the saturation coverage they gave the series compared to anything else with buy-ins of the same size—but it was by all accounts a lot of fun, Well, he’s back. with a May edition of Run It Up Reno, once again at the Peppermill Casino, running in the week before the start of the WSOP, from 24—30 May.

Most of the schedule is $85, $125, and $235, and includes All In or Fold, PLO 6-Max, Big O 6-Max, 8-Game, and Ante-Only, among other things, culminating in a $150K NLHE Main Event for $565.

If you’re looking for something to whet your whistle right before the WSOP, it might make a nice stop on the way south.

This Week in Portland Poker

  • Encore Club‘s EPS VIII starts tomorrow evening. Details on their site, but this is the rundown: Thursday: $20K NLHE (8pm, $100 entry/re-entry live re-buy, $50 add-on); Friday: $30K NLHE (8pm, $150 entry/re-entry live re-buy, $80 add-on); Saturday: $50K NLHE (1pm, $250 entry/re-entry, $100 add-on); Sunday: $100K NLHE (noon, $500 entry/re-entry, $200 add-on).
  • The Game has a winner-takes-most tournament Friday night at 7pm. $50 buy-in, $50 re-buy, $25 add-on. Up for grabs is a 2016 WSOP NLHE Ladies package that includes the $1K entry and a 2-day Vegas travel package.
  • At the Final Table there’s a $100K guarantee is coming up a week from Saturday.
  • Big O ran at A&L Sports Pub last Friday ($1K guarantee, 6pm) and Sunday (noon). Maybe again?

Only a Day Away

  • At the Liz Flynt Spring Poker Classic, the last big event is this weekend, a $200K guarantee with $50K guaranteed to first. $220 entry, two flights per day Friday through Monday.
  • Sunday is the beginning of the Colorado State Poker Championship at Midnight Rose Poker Room near Colorado Springs. It runs through the end of the month, with a plethora of $110 tournaments, ending with a $500 Main Event.
  • If you’re in Las Vegas instead of Portland, the Wynn Signature Weekend is a $250K guarantee tournament with a $600 buy-in. Entry flights Thursday through Saturday at noon. Or you can try out Planet Hollywood‘s Phamous Weekend, with Friday and Saturday flights at noon and 4pm ($350), a $100K guarantee. Day 2 for both events are on Sunday.
  • Thursday is also the first of three days of flights for a $100K at San Diego’s Oceans 11. $240 buy-in and flights each day at 10am and 6pm, with Day 2 on Sunday.
  • The Lucky Chances Battle of the Bay is coming up Saturday, and it might be a nice next stop after you’ve cashed big at the EPS (see the Deal from last month). Multiple events with guaranteed prizes up to $100K for 1st.
  • The Last Sunday tournaments at Tulalip and Muckleshoot are, respectively, a $30K ($345 entry, 11am) and a noon $150 entry with $100 add-on.
  • Next Friday is opening day for the Cal State Poker Championship at Commerce Casino in LA. Twenty events, running through 15 May, including four $100K guarantees, a $250K guarantee, and a $500K Main Event.
  • 7 May is the start of the WPTDeepstacks Central California, at Turlock Poker Room. Six events, with a $100K Main Event for $1.1K buy-in. That day is also the start of the Club One Spring Roll 80 miles to the southeast in Fresno. It includes a multi-entry day $75K NLHE game as its primary draw, but (my error, this event was in April) That Saturday is the 2nd Annual Central Valley Omaha Championships, an Omaha Hi-Lo tournament with a $160 buy-in.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 13 April 2016

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Black Friday

This Friday is the anniversary of Black Friday: April 15, 2011, which put a kink in the lives of a lot of US poker players who played on PokerStars, Full Tilt, and other sites (though most of them had other issues that would have brought them down, eventually). I’d mostly been playing in a home game since coming back to poker, and hadn’t really gotten deep into the online world before it got shut down. Coincidentally—or not—the boom in Portland poker came not long after Black Friday, with Aces Players Club, Ace of Spades, Final Table Poker Club, and Encore Club opening to join the already-existing Portland Players Club. Four years later we’ve got two $100K guarantee live events in the city in the space of a week.

If you want a primer on what went down, read Martin Harris’s article on PokerNews this week.

Big Stack Closes, Portland Meadows Coming

I’ll let Brian Sarchi say it.


Wrenegade

Zach Elwood, author of Reading Poker Tells (among other things), posted this on Twitter Tuesday, which got some laughs:

The site doesn’t seem to have much going for it (I can see a bunch of PHP errors on the landing page behind the sign-in dialog) but it’s not a joke, it definitely is in Portland and the Google Maps image from just two months ago even shows the same SUV parked in a slightly different position.

Stay Safe Out There

Heard a disturbing story on Tuesday from a player who’d been at Encore Club the night before. After winning some money at the shootout tables, he left and walked to his car, which was parked around the corner from the Mission Theater, just a couple blocks from the club. I wasn’t particularly late, about 10:30pm as he recalled. Then a guy stuck a gun in his face and told him to hand over his wallet.

For whatever reason, at the time the player told his story, he said he hadn’t contacted either police or the club—for whatever reason, some people don’t like dealing with the police—which everyone at the table we were at encouraged him to do, so I’m leaving out a number of details.

As poker players, some of us are wandering the streets with wads of cash in our pockets (others not). But just being in the vicinity of a place where it’s known that there’s a lot of cash can make you a target, because somebody’s going to assume that a percentage of the people in the neighborhood will have a chunk of money on them, and if they see you coming out of a club’s door, that just increases the probability.

So make sure you’re not an easy target. A robber would have to have someone inside a club (not inconceivable) to know who might be walking out with a lot of money, but you could easily lose what you brought to the club and still get a gun shoved in your face just by being there. You don’t want to have to have the “I just lost everything” conversation with a twitchy felon. Keep an eye out even if you lost and be ready to circle back to the front door if anything seems sketchy.

If you’re playing late and parked a ways away from a club, spots closer in usually open up as the night goes on. Pop out and move your car closer so your exposure isn’t as great when you leave with money.

If there’s a security guard and you’ve got a bunch of cash on you, ask the guard to walk you to your car. They’ve got a gun. Both Encore and Final Table hire armed security for most of their big events, and they’re usually more than willing to accompany you for a block or two.

If you are walking or you’ve got several blocks between you and your car, call a cab. Sure, you might be only going a few blocks, but that can be an expensive few blocks if you get robbed. Way more expensive than a cab that can pick you up at the club door and take you right to your car. Or home.

Deal of the Day: Encore Poker Series VIII

Starting a week from tomorrow, the Encore Poker Series returns with four increasingly large guarantees: $20K, $30K, $50K, and $100K. Results from last fall’s series were posted on Encore’s Facebook page (and reposted here). The short version is that the prize pools for the four events (with the same guarantees as the series next week) were $40.5K, $52.5K, $66.4K, and $140.9K, with the top 2 players in the $100K each getting nearly $30K apiece. This will be the first Portland event that I’m aware of reported to the Hendon Mob poker database. Pretty soon, you won’t need old Poker Mutant to find out past prize pool info (sniff).

IMG_0810

Do I really need to say much more about this? The smaller events usually take the room to capacity and beyond. Last fall, even the $100K got a total of 215 entries (including 50 re-entries). I’d love if they could run a satellite to the series like Muckleshoot does, with one satellite giving you entry to all four events, but apparently the gaming club ordinances don’t allow for those types of things. I’m just hoping for some more run-good.

This Week in Portland Poker

Only a Day Away

  • At the Liz Flynt Spring Poker Classic, Thursday through Monday are $400 flights for a $500K guarantee. Two flights per day at 12:30pm and 5pm, with Day 2 on Tuesday. Next weekend is a $200K guarantee with $50K guarantee for 1st place.
  • The Wildhorse Spring Poker Round-Up continues through the weekend. Thursday is the $1.1K High Roller (there’s a $225 satellite for that tonight at 7pm), as well as a $225 NLHE with $3K added. Friday is the $325 NLHE ($5K added) and Saturday is Day 1 of the $530 Main Event.
  • Mid-States Poker Tour’s Golden Gates Main Event ($200K guarantee, $1.1K entry) concludes the series this weekend.
  • The WPTDeepstacks Thunder Valley series Main Event is a $250K guarantee, $1.1K entry event starting Friday.
  • Calgary’s Deerfoot Inn Spring Super Stack series runs through 17 April; the Main Event is a C$150K guarantee, C$1.1K event.
  • Talking Stick outside Phoenix has another Getaway Poker Classic, where you get two night’s free room if you register for all three of their tournaments (one $200 and two $300) this weekend.
  • High Mountain Poker Palace in Eugene has a quarterly $230 buy-in scheduled for Saturday at noon.
  • Sunday is the beginning of the Colorado State Poker Championship at Midnight Rose Poker Room near Colorado Springs. It runs through the end of the month, with a plethora of $110 tournaments, ending with a $500 Main Event.
  • If you’re in Las Vegas instead of Portland next weekend, the Wynn Signature Weekend is a $250K guarantee tournament with a $600 buy-in. Entry flights Thursday through Saturday at noon. Or you can try out Planet Hollywood‘s Phamous Weekend, with Friday and Saturday flights at noon and 4pm ($350), a $100K guarantee. Day 2 for both events are on Sunday.
  • Next Thursday is also the first of three days of flights for a $100K at San Diego’s Oceans 11. $240 buy-in and flights each day at 10am and 6pm, with Day 2 on 24 April.
  • The Lucky Chances Battle of the Bay is coming up a week from Saturday, and it might be a nice next stop after you’ve cashed big at the EPS (see the Deal from last month). Multiple events with guaranteed prizes up to $100K for 1st.
  • The Last Sunday tournaments at Tulalip and Muckleshoot are, respectively, a $30K ($345 entry, 11am) and a noon $150 entry with $100 add-on. Last Sunday this month is 24 April, which is the $100K at Encore, so I expect more southbound traffic than anything going north.

Check out the #PNWPokerCalendar for more poker.