#PNWPokerCalendar Planner for 3 February 2016

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Oregon poker players continued their assault on West Coast tournaments over the past week, more are on the way!

Los Angeles Poker Classic

Several Portland-area players were ITM in the $350 buy-in $300K guarantee Event 16 (the prize pool was nearly double the guarantee, with almost 2,000 entries). Angela Jordison took sixth place in $570 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, she and David Prince of Eugene are in the eleven players returning for Day 2 of the $225 PLO8 today.

Planet Hollywood Phamous Poker Weekend

Corvallis’s Nicholas Reynolds made the money in the $600 $250K guarantee in Las Vegas last weekend.

Portland Players Club

PPC closed their doors at the end of last year, but they were scheduled to be the venue for the 10th Annual Deaf Poker Tournament coming up in a couple of weeks. PPC was always a welcoming venue to the deaf community, in addition to hosting the series for several years.  There hasn’t been any announcement of what’s going to happen to the series, and the Players Club site hasn’t been updated, but their Facebook page had a profile picture update this week, along with an address change to a location across the intersection from their old location, and a new address is showing up on the NW Deaf Poker Tournament page.

The Survivors

Why isn’t anyone in town running Survivor tournaments? I first encountered the format in the Venetian schedules back in 2012, and they’ve cropped up in more and more places in the years since then.

A Survivor tournament is similar to a satellite, in that there’s an equal payout at when the number of players reaches a defined percentage of entries. In the case of most Survivors, 10% of the field is paid a set amount, with money falling short of a full payout going to the person on the bubble of the 10%. So, if you’ve got 83 players, 8 players get the defined payout and a ninth player gets the leftovers.

In tournaments like the Venetian’s, where a portion of the money paid by the players goes to the house, there’s $50 taken out of a $300 buy-in, so each entry contributes $250 to the prize pool. The payout to each of the players in the top 10% is $2.5K (10 times the  prizepool contribution). So in the example where 83 players enter, there would be 8 payouts of $2.5K, and 1 payout of $750 (3 times the $250 contributed by the extra three players). Since no money is taken out of the prize pools in Portland card rooms, a $50 tournament would pay $500 if 10% of the field was paid.

Here’s a fairly typical set of payouts for a non-Survivor 51-entry tournament in town: 34%, 22%, 15%, 10%, 7.5%, 6.5%, 5%. In a $50 tournament with a prize pool of $2,550, payouts would be

  1. $865
  2. $560
  3. $380
  4. $255
  5. $190
  6. $165
  7. $135

In a Survivor-stype tournament, the payouts would be:

  1. $500
  2. $500
  3. $500
  4. $500
  5. $500
  6. $50

There are obvious advantages for most of the players, though one player drops entirely off the pay scale and one just makes their money back. For a smaller tournament like this one, in order to make 10x the entry, you practically need to win the tournament, and in larger tournaments, you need to make it through more players to get the same +900% ROI.

In re-entry formats, even players who’ve had to do another buy-in make several times their expenses if they make the top 10%. An advantage for the clubs is that the tournaments should end a lot earlier, since they stop automatically at 10% (though the bubble may take some time still). For dealers, with most of the players making a significant amount more than their  buy-in, it might make them a bit more generous with tips.

Commerce Casino is doing something a little different with its Survivor tournament during LAPC. 10% of the field still gets the defined payout, but they’re giving players incentive to gamble it up a bit by stopping play when 25%, 20%, and 15% of the field is left and paying the chip leader immediately, then taking their stack out of play. In a tournament with 100 players, the chip leader with 25 left gets their money, then another payout is made to whoever is leading with 20 left, again at 15 players, and then it would play down to 7 (with three players already paid rounding out the 10 payouts). Then you don’t have to wait for the rest of the rabble.

And Venetian recently introduced what they’re calling a Super Survivor last fall, with two-tiered payouts. 10% of the field still gets paid, but the bottom half of the 10% gets 6x the player contribution ($1.5K on $300 minus $50 fee) and the top half gets 14x ($3.5K on $300).

 Deal of the Day: Three Vegas Series

If Lincoln City’s just too sedate and the PacWest Poker Classic schedule isn’t exciting enough for you, then maybe you should spend the end of the month in Las Vegas. If you love the variety and action of the summer at the World Series but hate the weather, the average high at the end of February is less then 70°F. And on the cusp of March, there are three tournament series at major venues, all within about a 20-minute walk.

The Venetian Deepstack is already running, and it ends on 2 March. Beginning on the 23rd, there are five entry days for a $250K guarantee $250 buy-in event (Day 2 on the 28th), with 7pm tournaments including several bounty events and a Super Survivor. All of the events in the last week are $300 and less.

The Card Player Poker Tour/Wynn Classic runs from 24 February to 14 March. It starts off with a $600 entry $50K guarantee Seniors game, with  $10K guarantee PLO tournament the next day, and several $25K guarantees on subsequent days ($300 buy-in), before a $400 entry $200K that begins 2 March.

The day after the Wynn begins is the start of the World Series of Poker Circuit series at Bally’s. The kickoff event is a $365 buy-in $250K with six entry flights over three days (Day 2 on 29 February). The first week includes a $250 buy-in HORSE tournament (no ring for that one) and a $580 Big O official Circuit event on 29 February. The Main Event starts 4 March ($1,675 buy-in and a $1M guarantee).

The problem here is going to be making a decision about which events to play.

This Week in Portland Poker

Things are cranking back up after the January lull.

  • It’s a new month, which means that Final Table should be running its $20K First Friday tournament at 7pm.
  • Encore Club has an $8K special tournament tonight at 8pm. No re-buy! No re-entry! Wish I was going to be there! They’ve also announced a $35K guarantee on 20 February, the opening weekend of the PacWest Poker Classic.
  • Haven’t mentioned them for a while, because I try to focus on special events, but if you play in North Portland, you might want to connect with Brekken’s or Big Stack Players Club.
  • Today is Player Day at The Game (every first Wednesday). If you get there by noon, there’s no door fee. There’s a complimentary buffet lunch from noon to 1:30 and drawings for goodies throughout the afternoon and evening.

Only a Day Away

Check out the Pacific Northwest Tournament Calendar for more poker.