#PNWPokerCal Planner for 28 September 2016

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Like a lot of people who were playing poker on Bovada, I moved my account over to Ignition Casino earlier this month, since Bovada is shutting down poker operations at the end of September. The software with anonymous tables is the same, the tournament and cash offerings are identical, so far as I’ve been able to tell, and if you were willing to risk the unregulated Bovada environment, it didn’t seem as if there was any more of a reason not to trust the new site. I was willing to give them a try. I hadn’t had an issue with checks out of Bovada, so Sunday night, after I cashed in the nightly Thousandaire Maker Survivor-style tournament, I put in a request for $500 to see what would happen (just for comparison, my most recent withdrawal request on Bovada took three days for approval, and I had a check three days after that).

I was feeling a little pleased with myself, after having to miss the $20K guarantee at Portland Meadows Sunday afternoon, and lasting all of five hands in the only live game I’d gotten a chance to play, when my kings got cracked by a flush at Final Table’s $10K guarantee.

The, Tuesday morning, this showed up in my Twitter feed.

Yikes. People are passing around a counter-argument from USAFriendlyPokerSites.com, but I’d give more weight to that argument if it was from someone with contact information on their web site, and if the last line in the article wasn’t a plug for Ignition’s sign-up bonuses…I’m going to console myself with having cashed another Thousandaire maker while I was writing this up Tuesday night.

thousandaire

Honey, I Shrunk the Portland Poker World!

It was a tough week of news for Portland poker venues.

Thursday, Chadd Baker announced he was closing up Portland Players Club for good, after running it in A&L Sports Pub for the past nine months. He hadn’t been running a full schedule since moving across the street, and with the start of football season, the room was going to be otherwise occupied on Sundays, one of his days of operation. In his note, he mentions that Portland Meadows intends to pick up some of the slack in Portland Big O, with tournaments on Fridays (6:30pm) and Sundays (4:00pm).

A story in last week’s Willamette Week marked the upcoming closure of the Rialto Pool Hall and the Jack London Bar, the location of the Monday Mix and the last downtown poker venue. Rialto’s not closing until Christmas, but that is less than three months off. The Mix has already survived two venue changes. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

In fact, the first site for the Mix was in BC’s Bar, underneath Aces Full Players Club on Powell. Ricky Lee posted on Tuesday that Aces will be moving downstairs on 10 October, just a couple of weeks from now. Aces was always a spacious club, with plenty of room between the tables, but they haven’t held large events for some time.

Deal of the Week: Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up

It may be hard to believe but it’s almost October, so it’s just five weeks to the start of the Fall Poker Round Up in Pendleton. The Round Up schedule doesn’t vary much, and this edition is no exception, though prices do seem to have risen a little, with the opening event coming in at a $175 buyin ($3,000 added, last year it was $125 buyin), and the first Saturday tournament at $230 buyin ($3,000 added). NLHE Shootout on Sunday, Omaha Hi-Low on Monday, HORSE and Turbo NLHE Tuesday, Seniors NLHE on Wednesday, a $1,100 NLHE High Roller (and another NLHE tournament) Thursday, NLHE on Friday, and the Main Event on Saturday and Sunday, 12—13 November, with another Turbo Saturday night.

Strap on your cold-weather gear and get ready for the great migration east.

This Week in Portland Poker

Last Sunday’s $20,000 guarantee at Portland Meadows took me by surprise. I didn’t hear anything about it until Friday, though it seems some of my supposed friends knew about it. I’m looking at you, Brad and Steve. That said, I don’t have any big event news by post day for the third week in a row. I will broadcast late-breaking events in the @pokermutant Twitter feed, with the #PNWPokerCal hashtag.

Only a Day Away

Remember to keep an eye on the #PNWPokerCal Twitter hashtag and the PNW Poker Calendar for upcoming events!