Daily Archives: Wednesday, 5 August 2015

#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for August 5

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The Poker Mutant is always looking for the next big score (he kind of needs it these days), and as usual I was looking at my personal poker calendar, crossing off things that I’m not going to make it to (goodbye, Ante Up Thunder Valley Main Event!). Personal circumstance dictates my schedule’s not going to be as open as it has been over the past years, so I’m not going to be able to take off for a week at a time, which rather limits options for larger events and series. Driving makes it a lot easier to play an open-ended schedule, even if you need to have to spend a couple days in transit, but with shorter travel windows, that’s more difficult to manage.

Still, just like during the summer in Las Vegas, I’m planning ahead, so that I can be ready to take advantage of any opportunity that arises. Which means looking at schedules.

Bay 101 Open Main Event: Deal of the Day

What caught my eye today was the Main Event of the Bay 101 Open in San Jose. San Jose is a direct destination from PDX and there are usually a number of flights full of Intel folks shuttling between Hillsboro and the Bay Area. Once upon a time, I flew semi-regularly to SJC and San Francisco, sometimes just for day trips to trade shows.

The Bay 101 Open ME is an $1,000 + 100 buy-in NLHE tournament (with limited seating) that has two starting days: Saturday, September 12th and Sunday, September 13th, with Day 2 on Monday the 14th. Both starting days kick off at what might seem like and un-reasonable weekend 9:30am. Last year’s event had just over 500 entries, with a $500K prize pool and almost $100K going to the winner. There’s no guarantee, but this year’s winner gets a $7,500 seat to the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament next spring.

Checking on Orbitz and Expedia, there were still a few seats on Alaska Airlines’ 6am flight PDX – SJC for just $150 RT. It’s scheduled to get in to San Jose before 8am, and the casino’s less than a 10-minute taxi ride. If you can lock down a seat on the plane and in the tournament, you’re ahead of me, I just don’t know what my schedule will be in mid-September.

This Week in Portland Poker

Special events coming up this weekend are:

  • $9K Guarantee NLHE ($60 buyin, no rebuy, $30 addon) at Encore Club on Thursday at 8pm (ignore the link above the graphic and the link on the graphic, their web person is missing some stuff lately). Friday night is the regular $15K ($60 buyin with 1 live rebuy, $30 addon) and regular schedules on Saturday and Sunday (a total of $20K of guarantees over 10 tournaments)
  • Final Table has the First Friday $20K ($100 buyin, 1 rebuy if felted, $50 addon)at 7pm. I personally like the structure of this tournament: it starts 200BB deep it’s nine-handed, and the M of the starting stack goes from 22 to 12 in the first round with antes instead of 25 to 8. And I really dislike live rebuys. I dislike rebuys period.
  • For those of you who want more cards, Portland Players Club has a $2K Guarantee Big O (aka The Devil’s Game) tournament Saturday at 5pm. $100 for 30K in chips, but it’s Big O, so you know you’ll probably need one or two $100 rebuys and a $40 20K addon.

Only a Day Away

As usual, all these events are on the Pacific Northwest Tournament Calendar, with links.