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.

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.

QOTD: how old will the winner of this years WSOP main event be? 65% had 30 or over, how about 28 or over?

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) May 13, 2016

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.

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.

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.