The Ante Up Poker Tour wraps up its 2013 season this month in the same place where it all began, at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, Calif., just outside of Sacramento.
The Ante Up NorCal Classic, which runs Nov. 7-18, is a 13-event series with no-limit hold’em (including six-handed, turbo, bounty and ante only), Omaha/8 and a H.O.R.S.E. event for the mixed-game enthusiasts.
The main event features a $250K guarantee with three starting days to suit everyone’s schedule. The buy-in is $1,100 and the event’s winner lands on the cover of the January issue of Ante Up. The winner also receives a personalized AUPT champion’s jacket to wear proudly in every chilly poker room across the nation.
The response from the inaugural Ante Up NorCal Classic last year was overwhelming with the main-event prize pool reaching $342K. The winner was Sacramento resident Huan Cung, who took home $73K and had his photo splashed on the cover of the January issue.
Thunder Valley Casino Resort is the perfect location to end this season of the AUPT. It’s one of the nicest properties on the West Coast, plus it has a first-class staff and some of the best action you’ll find anywhere.
“Along with the great poker that you can always expect during an Ante Up stop,” said Thunder Valley’s director of poker Ben Erwin, “there are other things to do being in Northern California and being relatively close to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe. There will be a lot of things for people to see when they come out to visit.”
Erwin said the partnership with Ante Up has been a big reason why his poker room has been so successful with its foray into tournament series poker over the past year.
“We started seeing a big demand for the game,” Erwin said. “And that’s when I looked and saw a partnership with a magazine, someone who could work with us as we started gearing toward this, never really seeing this level of success. … And that’s when we partnered with (Ante Up). The NorCal last year, for us, was a really big deal. The property is absolutely committed to these large-scale poker events.”
See the ad on the facing page for all of the details.
— Email Garrett Roth at roth@anteupmagazine.com.
Ante Up NorCal Classic at Thunder Valley
Nov. 7, 1 p.m., Event 1: $120 Turbo
Nov. 7, 5 p.m., Event 2: $175 ($20K guarantee)
Nov. 8, 11 a.m., Event 3: $425 Day 1A ($150K guar.) and Day 1B follows at 5 p.m. Day 1C is Nov. 9 at 11 a.m. as the finals will be Nov. 10 at 1 p.m.
Nov. 10, 7 p.m., Event 4: $150 Knockout ($10K guar.)
Nov. 11, 1 p.m., Event 5: $140 H.O.R.S.E.
Nov. 11, 5 p.m., Event 6: $150 Omaha/8 ($10K guar.)
Nov. 12, 1 p.m., Event 7: $120 Turbo
Nov. 12, 5 p.m., Event 8: $150 Six-max ($10K guar.)
Nov. 13, 1 p.m., Event 9: $120 Ante only
Nov. 13, 5 p.m., Event 10: $175 NLHE ($20K guar.)
Nov. 14, 5 p.m., Event 11: $300 Bounty ($20K guar.)
Nov. 15, 11 a.m., $1,100 Main Event: Day 1A ($250K guar.); Day 1B is at 4 p.m. Day 1C is Nov. 16 at 11 a.m. and Day 2 is Nov. 17 at 1 p.m. The main event’s final table is Nov. 18 at 4 p.m.
Nov. 17, 7 p.m., Event 13: $150 Knockout ($10K guar.)
