Bounty Winner

That medallion next to my card cap in the blog header is for winning a non-series bounty tournament at the Venetian. One of the final events of the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza II this last weekend was a $15K NLHE Bounty tournament, and it was won by Dwayne Heido of Tualatin. Congrats, Dwayne! You can find other DSE winners here.

Deal of the Day: Stay At Home

The Deal each week is all about finding value. Usually, that means trying to extract the most for your poker-playing dollar by getting somewhere cheap where there’s a possibility of a big payoff.

I have a friend who kind of snickers art the idea of driving to Seattle for a single tournament or flying to Las Vegas for a few days to catch a few tournaments, but my contention is that if there’s some potential payoff that you can’t get at home (bigger prize pools, longer levels), then it can be worth it.

That pretty much goes out the window this month. With the number of large events going on in Portland alone (see last week’s April Is the Pokerest Month), unless you’re in Las Vegas, LA, or—God help you—Edmonton for some other reason, there’s not much of a reason to leave town for poker value. Just the announced events (Final Table $20K and $100K, $200K of events during the Encore Poker Series and a $35K) are worth hanging around for—I’ve gotten a couple of inquiries from people coming from out-of-town to play—and it’s a certainty that there are going to be the type of last-minute announcements that I don’t get in time for the calendar that just drive me crazy!!!!! Stop putting every special event on Wednesday and Saturday, guys!

Calm down. OK.

Poker calendars across the West (and around the country) are exploding with events in the lead-up to the summer WSOP (which starts in 62 days). But until May, you can do it all here in Portland. Not that that’ll stop me from posting another out-of-town deal next week.

This Week in Portland Poker

• Friday night is the First Friday $20K guarantee at Final Table, the event that kicks off a month of big tournaments here in Portland (see last week’s Planner).
• The Players Club is running weekly Big O games at their new location in A&L Sports Bar, Friday nights at 6pm. $40 buy-in and re-buys, $20 add-on. Late registration until 8pm.

Only a Day Away

• The Liz Flynt Spring Poker Classic starts tomorrow at the Hustler Casino in Los Angeles. It kicks off with a $200K guarantee with six starting flilghts over three days, and a $250 buy-in. It runs through the entire month.
• Deepstacks Poker Tour is at Casino Yellowhead in Edmonton starting Friday. No direct flights from Portland (most involve stopovers in Vancouver or Calgary) but five to six hours is about what you can expect for travel time. It finishes on 11 April.
• The Wildhorse Spring Poker Round-Up kicks off a week from tomorrow, with an evening satellite to the Main Event at 7pm Thursday, 7 April. Event #1 is a $120 (including dealer bonus) NLHE tournament at noon on Friday, 8 April. The Main Event is the weekend of 16 & 17 April.
• Mid-States Poker Tour’s Golden Gates stop starts the same day in Blackhawk, Colorado (satellites to the first event actually get going on 4 April). Event #1 is a $360 entry $100K guarantee with starting days 7—9 April and a Main Event ($200K guarantee, $1.1K entry) with three starting days the next weekend.
• Full House Poker’s $10K Heads-Up Championship is the weekend of 9 & 10 April in Eugene.
• The WPTDeepstacks Thunder Valley series runs 9—17 April, with a one-day $100K ($400 entry) as its opener, capped off with a $250K guarantee, $1.1K entry event starting Tax Day.
• Calgary’s Deerfoot Inn has a 5-event Spring Super Stack series scheduled for 13—17 April, including a C$150K guarantee, C$1.1K event.

Check out the Pacific Northwest Tournament Calendar for more poker.