#PNWPokerCal Planner for 10 January 2018

In the Money

It was four years ago this month that I wrote In the Money, a little screed on long-term profitability for poker tournament players, which led to me writing for PokerNews for a couple of years, as well as my one foray into live reporting at the WSOP. It sparked a small amount of controversy, its own thread in the Two Plus Two News, Views, & Gossip forum, and a couple of podcast interviews. There was a lot of pushback from poker pros, and a few high-fives from cash game specialists like Limon (who is once again been hounded off of Twitter, sadly).

But last week, Daniel Negreanu put up a year-end post with a collation of his results from the past five years, casually dropping that he had losing years for 2016 and 2017. In fact, it it hadn’t been for the enormous Big One for One Drop payout for 2nd place in 2014 ($8.3M), only two of the five years would have been profitable, making him an average of about $89K profit per year on more than $2M in annual buyins. And that’s Daniel Negreanu we’re talking about, not mildly-talented tournament grinder.

The Calendar

I’ve put a lot of work into the #PNWPokerCalendar over the past few years. Did you know that you can sort the events by region? There are buttons at the top of the calendar that will select just the series and events for a speciific area: Southern California, Nevada, Portland, etc. You can also view events for just a single week. And over the past few months, I’ve been adding in entry information for specific events in brackets, just in case you haven’t already figured that out: [125e100b] means entry is $125 and rebuy is $100. An a is addon, natch. Where possible, I include any fees or dealer addons in the entry value.

Oh, and there’s an Expedia flight search link (you can also find hotels and cars) at the bottom of the page if you see something you like.

WSOP Millionaire Maker Qualifiers at the Beach

If you’re in Eugene on Tuesday or Thursday nights, the Beach Poker Club is running qualifying tournaments to their 26 May Final Tournament, a 100-seat event where the winner gets a seat and travel money to the WSOP Millionaire Maker. Playing five of the semi-weekly tournaments gets you a seat, and the more tournaments you play, the more chips you get for the final tournament, plus there’s a Main Event Satellite entry up for raffle.

#PNWPokerLeaderboard

One big result out of the other end of the continental US: Beaverton’s Nathaniel Anderson cut a deal for second place in the 197-entry Seminole Hard Rock Fun In the Sun Main Event just before the New Year. He was out-chipped 2 to 1, and he didn’t get the nifty guitar trophy, but he did get nearly twice the 3rd-place money.

My Time Is Coming

I’ve been picking my poker action back up since the lull of the holidays. I played two Thousandaire Makers mid-week (busting within ten minutes of the second after entering more than an hour into the tournament), then logged into a $15 Jackpot Sit & Go, picked up another 5x ($75) payout but couldn’t close it out. Played a few sessions of PLO and PLO8 online, then it was the Final Table First Friday $20K Guarantee. I was out before the break and managed to make a faux-pas.

Saturday, though, was my first Thousandaire Maker cash of the year. Even losing a couple buyins in PLO the next day it was still a profitable week.

Wild West Poker Tour

The schedule for the Wild West Poker Tour showed up on NW Poker the afternoon I posted last week’s Planner, so I didn’t get a chance to say anything about it, but I guess I’m going to have to take a day off work if I want to play the 6-Max at noon on Friday, 26 january.

There are a few things that aren’t entirely clear about the Warp Speed to the Final Table: I get that everyone at the table is all in on the first hand and everyone who wins gets to go to the final table, but does that mean the number of first tables is limited to 9 or 10 or that there’s going to be a 15-seat final table if they get a lot of entries and re-entries. I’m guessing that the final table beginning two hours after the start means they’ll just be running a couple of first tables at a time in sequence. But I want to play that and the Bounty…

I am eager to be either on the YouTubed High Roller final table or commentating on it, but I’m pretty sure neither is happening.

And the Sunday night Survivor; it should say right up front for clarity that 10% of the field is going to get $650. But I’m liking it.

Only a Day Away

  • The Tulalip Poker Pow Wow is under way. There is a satellite tonight and next Wednesday, with the 4-Game Mix on Thursday (1pm) and two entry days to the $50K GTD weekend event on Friday (1pm) and Saturday (11am). Monday is the 2-Game Mix, Seniors on Tuesday, then the $100K Main Event has three starting days on 18 January.
  • Heartland Poker Tour is at Ameristar East Chicago with the Main Event ($1650 entry) starting Thursday.
  • Los Angeles Poker Classic 25  at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles has their $1M GTD Kickoff tournament this weekend, with a $350 buyin and entry flights through Sunday morning.
  • Friday is the beginning of Thunder Valley’s World Series of Poker Circuit, the closest approach the WSOPC makes to Portland.
  • The $250 Muckleshoot Monthly Special is Sunday at noon in Auburn. The next Sunday (21 January) is the Big Bounty, and the last Sunday is a Deepstack.
  • The Venetian January Weekend Extravaganza runs 16—21 January, with five flights for a $250 buyin $250K GTD tournament at its backbone.
  • 20 January is the Ontario Poker Room Team Tournament, with a $125K buyin and $100 rebuy.
  • The Wynn Signature Weekend is coming up 24 January. The highlight is the $250K GTD $600 buyin tournament (3 entry days). There’s also a $300 buyin Survivor tournament on 28 January, with a $2.5K payout.

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