Portland Poker Holiday Championship Series
It’s time! Tomorrow is the start of the first series in Portland since the closure of Encore Club this summer. Encore ran eight incarnations of its EPS 4-tournament series (the last of which was in April). Then there was a week-long series for the opening of Portland Meadows Poker Room in May. Both of those series featured $100K guarantee tournaments. The Portland Poker Holiday Championship Series (four events total alternating at Final Table Poker Club and Portland Meadows) doesn’t shoot quite that big, but it’s a sign that both rooms are healthy.
I’d expect all of the events to reach capacity (I know a couple of guys betting on the turnout for the $30K at Meadows), Angie Lynne Schulz at Final Table posted in the NW Poker Facebook group on Tuesday night hat they were taking pre-registration because of a 230-player cap on the Friday night $30K (call 503-719-5457 for details).
The #nitcast Cometh
@pokermutant @zbeg @apokerplayer @PDXHeater @SergeTPDX @FinalTablePDX Spirit gave me $50. Expires this week. Gotta go somewhere. PDX it is!
— Carlos Welch (@HipHop101Trivia) November 30, 2016
Deal of the Week: Last Chance at the Bike
My travel schedule has been a bit constrained since I got back from working at the WSOP this summer, and for one reason or another (mostly a job), the only trip out of town that I’ve managed since then has been to Chinook Winds, which didn’t go so well. I’ve even had to miss some of the bigger special events here in town, and the same thing’s going to happen with the Holiday Series this weekend, because I’ll be at the coast.
And I didn’t make it to EPT Prague, my target for six Decembers.
So, with schedules winding down for the holiday season and still a lot of family stuff happening before the end of the year, is there any (cheap) way to make a big hit and maybe stash something in the old Christmas stocking?
What about the last event of the WSOPC series at the Bicycle Casino? Event #20 is a 2-day tournament with 14 entry flights (2 each day for a week from 13—19 December). There’s a $500K guarantee, and the buyin is $200+$40 (yes, that’s 16.67% rake, actually 19.17% once 3% of the prize pool is taken out for “administration fees”). 10% of the field passes through to Day 2 (on 20 December). If you make it to Day 2, you immediately get $400.
You can enter and re-enter through level 6 (25-minute levels), and you can enter multiple flights. Players who qualify for Day 2 more than once play the biggest stack they qualify on Day 2, and the other stacks are removed from play, with the player getting another $1,600 for each removed stack ($2,000 total, including the $400 qualification payout).
There are still some inexpensive flights to LA from PDX for that weekend, less than $400 including two nights in the Quality Inn across the street from the casino (I stayed there on my way back from Vegas this summer). It might seem counter-intuitive to spend $500 to fly to LA to play a $240 tournament, but there will be six qualifying flights for a $500K prizepool between Saturday at noon and the end of Monday. A similar $500K event in the summer of 2015 (with a somewhat different buyin structure) drew 2,318 entries, making a prize pool of $796,564, with about half of that divvied up between the last 10 players. (26 players qualified twice, 6 players qualified three times.)
Only a Day Away
- The WPT/Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic runs through 11 December. The lower-buyin (by which I mean less than $5K) events are mostly done as of Thursday, with an 11am PLO tournament for $1,090. There is another $1,090 NLHE event on 10 December, but anything else in that price range is a satellite to the $10K buyin Main Event.
- Deepstacks Poker Tour’s Championship series at the Grey Eagle Casino in Calgary is running and continues despite some guy driving his car into the Event Center (as documented by one of my summer WSOP colleagues, @ElleSriracha).
- The World Series of Poker Circuit at The Bicycle Casino starts tomorrow.
- The Venetian holds the December edition of its Weekend Extravaganza a week from today, then the New Year’s Extravaganza begins 22 December.
Remember to keep an eye on the #PNWPokerCal Twitter hashtag and the PNW Poker Calendar for upcoming events!