What is it about art directors and poker? Are they living in some sort of time vortex? Last summer, Newsweek ran a cover article on the dangers of online gaming, featuring a kid holding an iPad displaying the five cards of a spade royal flush.

About the same time, GEICO started running a pretty funny ad featuring Kenny Rogers playing poker, driving his tablemates to the point of desperation by singing the chorus to “The Gambler.” All the players are holding five cards. Nolan Dalla, the Senior Writer for WSOP.com, wrote a personal blog titled “Will Kenny Rogers Please Learn How to Play Hold’Em?” Admittedly, we don’t see the faces of the cards in this game, so they could be playing Big O or a 2-7 game, and the song does date from 1978, when Five Card Draw was more well-known than Texas Hold’Em, but the younger guys Kenny’s playing with are about as unlikely to be playing Draw as they are a Seven Card Stud game. Never mind, as Dalla points out, that they don’t have any chips or money on the table. Dalla mocks Rogers for the gaffe, but he’s just hired talent in the piece, not the person making decisions about the game they’re playing.

The same goes for the latest in the bizarre Matthew McConaughey Lincoln car commercial series. Previously, he the ad agency had him do some drawling metaphysical rambles seemingly-inspired by his turn as a burned-out cynic/murder investigator in True Decective (though not appropriating the look of the chain-smoking, pony-tailed, Russ Cohle, a guy whose only fix for years to the broken tail light on his beat-up truck was red duct tape). In one of the most recent, he’s silent, simply smirking at the camera when he gets back in the car following his (presumed) win after drawing to and tabling a six-high straight flush. And once again, in the only shot where you see the four players seated at the table, there isn’t any sort of betting unit in sight.

Final Table $100K: Deal of the Day

The Deal is usually a pick for out-of-town travel opportunities where you can maximize your tournament profit. For some players from the west side of Portland, SE 122nd and Division may seem like out-of-town, but Final Table continues to be one of the mainstays of poker in the city, and it’s first up this fall with a $100K guarantee tournament on Saturday, October 24th, at 11am. It’s less than 20 minutes from my house, the buyin is $300 (with a $100 addon, one rebuy, and a $10 door fee). How much more of a bargain can you find?

Final Table $100K Guarantee from March 2015

When Final Table ran a $100K earlier this year, the prize pool made it to $133.5K, with nearly $34K scheduled for first place. You can see from my bustout photo above that all I did was contribute money in that game. Advance tickets are on sale now, you can be fairly certain that it’s going to be full—even the spacious Final Table can only accommodate so many tables—and parking’s going to be tight, as usual, though once you find a space, you won’t have to move your car every couple hours. Late registrants are likely to get stuck at the folding tables and chairs, rather than any of the newly re-felted main tables or comfy chairs used for the daily tournaments. I can walk down to Chavez & Division in 20 minutes, so I’m probably just going to catch a bus.

Final Table will be breaking tables down as fast as they can after the break and any alternates have been seated in order to get shootouts up and running. They’ve been running 1/2 and 2/5 every day; there should be plenty of action for players busting out of the $100K.

This Week in Portland Poker

• I’m going to stray outside of Portland to mention the Friday night tournament in my old (and I mean really old) stomping grounds of Eugene, at Full House Poker. It’s a $150 buyin with a $30 addon. $5 daily membership fee for non-members. $5 dealer bonus. I think it’s 20K for the buyin and 20K for the bonus, but the web site has a typo: “200,00 starting/double dealer bonus/add-on” and it says “$5 Double Dealer Bonus receives 200,000 chips.” Not sure if they’re all supposed to be 200K or 20K. 7pm, usually gets a dozen or more players.
• The Game on SW Barbur has a new Power Hour with a $5 door fee until noon (open at 11am). Gets a mention because today they’re featuring a catered lunch from the official restaurant of the Mutant Poker blog, Hunan Pearl in Lake Oswego.
• Don’t like carrying wads of cash into poker clubs? Big Stack Players Club lets you buy into tournaments with credit or debit cards. You still have to figure out what to do when you have to carry the cash out. Tournaments start at 7pm Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; 5pm on Sunday.
• Portland Players Club has a $2K Big O tournament at 7:15 Friday night. 20K chips for $40, live rebuys, and another 20K for $30 addon at break. Saturday is a $3K guarantee for $30 at 6:15pm, with 3 freeroll flights at 11am, 1pm, and 3:30pm.
• In the calm before the $100K storm, Final Table has their regular schedule, with the new $10K ($75 buyin, $30 addon) at 7pm Friday, a $4K at 1pm on Saturday ($40 with live rebuys and $40 addon).
• Encore Club’s 4-event EPS series comes up at the end of the month, they ran a $9K at noon on Monday that got a $13K prize pool (took 5th after riding a short stack at the final table) and I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was another special this week or next. Friday is a $13K guarantee ($60 buyin), with first place getting a seat to their$100K (on November 1st), there are $3.5K games Saturday and Sunday at noon ($40 buyin for both), and an $8K Saturday night at 8pm ($60 buyin) which is giving out a seat to the $50K (Halloween).
• And how could I forget Aces Full on SE Powell? Their weekday noon game is now a $1K guarantee Monday to Thursday, with a $2K guarantee on Friday, all on a $20 buyin and $10 door fee.

Only a Day Away

• The Wynn Fall Classic in Las Vegas begins today with a $50K guarantee Seniors event (50+) with a $600 buyin. It features three multi-day events with guarantees from $100K to $300K. Weren’t the Democratic Party presidential candidates there last night? I wonder if Bernie Sanders plays poker?
• Tomorrow is the start of LA’s Hustler Casino Liz Flynt Fall Poker Classic. Three of the first four events are survivor tournaments (even chop at 10% of the field). There’s a $250K guarantee event with a $250 buyin, a $500K guarantee event with a $350 buyin, and a $250K guarantee with $150 buyin and $100 addon. It runs through November 5th.
• The PlayNow Poker Championship runs from tomorrow until October 25th. at the Hard Rock Casino in Vancouver. The first event is a C$330 Women’s event (about US$250). They’re estimating a prize pool of more than US$110K for the second, two-day event (US610 entry, freezeout format) and event 3, a US$1265 main event. Seating for all events is limited.
• Friday is the start of the Card Player Poker Tour/Hollywood Park Casino National Championship of Poker in Los Angeles. It kicks off with a $25K guarantee event that includes four seats to the $500 $150K guarantee Main Event the next weekend.
• Saturday is opening day at Oceans 11 Casino for another WPTDeepstacks event, starting off with a $50K guarantee and ending with a $200K Main Event.
• Jason Somerville brings his Run It Up juggernaut to the Peppermill Reno next Tuesday for six days, with a $565 Main Event, plus Big O, Survivor, Ante Up, and All In Or Fold tournaments.
• And if you’re in Reno next week instead of at Final Table for the $100K, the Eldorado Resort Casino Poker Challenge is running, with a $1K Tournament of Champions ($40K guarantee) that might be interesting if you want the feel of a small-field high roller tournament.  There are two preliminary $240 events with 5 seats to the TOC awarded to the top five finishers.

Check out the Pacific Northwest Tournament Calendar for more poker.