Monthly Archives: October 2014

November Tournament Poker Schedule

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Happy Halloween, everybody!

The Pacific Northwest Tournament Calendar for November is full of events in Portland, Oregon, and the surrounding states.

Portland

The Encore Poker Series V is over (I just missed the money in event #1 but took enough bounties to pay my way) but the month kicks off with a $500 entry tournament at Final Table on the 1st, with a $10K guarantee for first place, which I’d play but for a family obligation. Next Friday (7 November) is their usual $20K guarantee ($100 buy-in/1 re-buy/$50 add-on). Tonight (Halloween) would usually be a Fifth Friday $20K there, but it’s a holiday! Returning on 28 November is the Portland Players Club $5K Big O.

Oregon

The big one is here. It’s the Wildhorse Fall Poker Round-Up in Pendleton, the biggest regularly-held series in the state, running 6-16 November. Mostly $225 (including entry fee and bonus chips) single-entry tournament beginning at noon, with a mix of $235 and $120 events at 7pm. Omaha Hi-Lo on Monday the 10th, HORSE on Tuesday, Seniors event and a $1,500 High Roller on Wednesday, with a $525 Main Event starting Saturday, 15 November.

California

Down South, the WPT Deepstacks event is wrapping up this weekend in San Diego. LA hosts the Hustler Casino’s Liz Flynt Fall Poker Classic through 5 November, with Commerce Casino’s LA Poker Open close on its heels from 7-24 December. The LA Poker Open has a mixture of events with buy-ins from $160 to the $1,600 Main Event with a $500K guarantee (and a $570 preliminary event and $250K  guarantee).

Colorado

Technically, there’s no Oregon border with Colorado, but with legal recreational marijuana in Washington across the river and a ballot measure here next week, it practically smells like Colorado. It’s only two-and-a-half hours to Denver by plane, flights are relatively cheap, and theoretically you could get from PDX to Black Hawk, Colorado in just a little more time than it takes to drive from Portland to Pendleton. So the Mid-States Poker Tour stop in Black Hawk qualifies for the calendar, with a $200K guarantee Main Event ($1,100 buy-in) for the series running 7-16 November. There’s a mix of prelim events from $40-$260 all through the run.

Nevada

Saved the most for last. The World Series Circuit event in Lake Tahoe is already underway, and runs through 10 November, with the $1,675 Main Event starting on the 7th and 8th. The Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza IV also started yesterday, and runs all the way tup to Thanksgiving (which is 27 November). It features five events with $100K or better guarantees, with the $1,600 Main starting on three days: 16-18 November. The WSOP Main Event November Nine, of course, is running 10-11 November at the Rio in the Penn & Teller Theater. Let me know if you’re playing that one. Up the Strip from the Venetian, the Stratosphere is hosting a Heartland Poker Tour event 7-16 November, with lots of reasonable buy-pins and satellites to their $1,650 televised Main Event, with three Day 1 flights on 14-15 November. And on the Strip’s other end, Planet Hollywood takes over hosting the las Vegas WSOP Circuit 13-24 November, with a $365 opening event sporting a $250K guarantee and a $1M guarantee on their $1,675 Main Event (with starting days on 21 and 22 November).

See you on the felt somewhere.

Out of the Shadows

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Busted the Final Table $20K just short of the money on Friday night, had a good run early in the tournament, stacked the player on my left twice, got down to three tables with an average stack and went card dead for a while, then shoved [ax jx] from the BB over a big stack’s 2.5x opening raise with ~10BB and ran into [7x 7x], who called after thinking about it for a while. No Tulalip for me, but I heard they got more than 300 entries.

20141003 Final Table $20K

 

Six-and-a-half hours. 22nd of 124 entries. -100% ROI.

Saturday, Encore ran an $18K guarantee. I enforced my self-ban on re-buys and add-ons, and was doing reasonably well through the first three hours. Picked up [jx jx] UTG, raised, and a guy on the far end of the table who was talking to his buddy behind him threw out a call of the BB. He argued with the dealer briefly about whether he needed to put in the full raise amount, then tossed in the 5K. Queen-high un-coordinated flop, I c-bet, he raised me, I shoved, and he turned over [qx 3x], then hit a [3x] on the turn. Again, I lose even with [ax ax], although I did not lose the minimum as Kyle Keranen did with his [ax ax] v. Portland WSOP sensation Curtis Rystadt‘s [qx 4x].

I did manage to pick up my buy-in in about 90 minutes after the game, playing 25¢/50¢ NLHE at Cowboy’s Aces.

Anyway, if you haven’t already seen it, I’m supposed to be on the live call-in Limon Show Podcast at CrushLivePoker.com tonight at 6pm Pacific. We’ll be talking about my Deadspin article on tournament ROI and related subjects, the backlash to said article, and possibly a little about the bizarre coincidence that we both grew up in Eugene. Limon was a guest himself on the 2+2 Pokercast a few weeks back. I don’t know if there’s a way for folks without a sub to CrushLivePoker to check out the show, but check around for promo codes for a free month.

Coming up: I should have another article for PokerNews.com soon. After the podcast tonight, I might try the HOP (NLHE, PLO, Pineapple) tournament at Big Stacks Poker Club (a new venue for me), then the next big things are a tournament at Final Table with a $10K guarantee for first place on the 18th, and the Encore Poker Series V running from the 23rd to the 26th, with a total of $125K in guarantees in four events.

A New Month

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It’s the end of another week of poker. Not a particularly fruitful one, as I didn’t book any tournament cashes and missed both the 6-Max and Seniors tournaments at Tulalip because of work, but I did step into a couple of NLHE shootout (what passes for cash games in the Portland social gaming scene) sessions (unusual for me) and racked up some decent profit (even more unusual, since I don’t play much aside from tournaments). Not only that, but one of my hands ([9s 7s] making a straight against [ad 7d]) won me a month’s free cover at Cowboy’s Aces, in the bar below Aces Full. You can win your own month of covers with (if I remember correctly) [9h 7h] this month.

201410929 Cowboy's AcesIt’s the Final Table $20K again tonight. They’ve held eleven so far this year (skipping July because the first Friday was July 4th). I missed the February event but I’ve cashed in three of ten, all since June, so I’m crossing my fingers for a fourth, then heading up to Tulalip for the Main Event of the Pow Wow tomorrow morning.

Almost forgot. I keep meaning to plug my PokerNews articles from last month.

An Analysis of the “Double Bubble” Payouts Planned for the 2015 PCA
Looks at the long-term effects of a new payout structure in place for a few tournaments being tried out by PokerStars next year.

Blowing Your Stack: The Economics of “Best Stack Forward” Tournaments
Examines the ROI of playing events like the Mega Millions at The Bicycle Casino.