The Spring Classic runs March 15-19 at Muckleshoot Casino and features five tournaments with a total of $55K added. The schedule includes a $250 shootout and tournaments with $200, $300, $500 and $750 buy-ins.
Also, $14K of the $55K added is reserved for the top four overall point-winners, so make sure you play at least four events. The rest of the money is added to the prize pools to make it one of the best series values anywhere. See the ad on the facing page for more.
Muckleshoot is 31 miles southeast of Seattle in Auburn, Wash., and is the largest room in the region with 31 tables. Fridays and Saturdays see Omaha players vie for three $100 high-hand payouts ever hour from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., plus a $20K bad-beat jackpot (quad 10s).
WILDHORSE RESORT: The Pendleton, Ore., poker room will be adding $40K over 13 tournaments April 6-16. Look for more details in the April issue.
BAD BEAT JACKPOT HIT: Shortly after Ante Up reported the Super Bad Beat Jackpot shared by River Rock and Hard Rock casinos in British Columbia was up to $687,287 as of Dec. 2, it was hit for $719,360 in a $3-$6 limit game, straight flush over straight flush. The loser earned $359,680.
Don’t worry if you missed out because the jackpot was back to $372,116 at press time (quad eights).
River Rock is a 10-table room in Richmond, B.C., featuring $3-$6 limit and $1-$3 and $3-$5 NLHE. A limited tournament schedule has resumed with a $330 event on the third Saturday of the month and $100 tournaments the other Saturdays.
The Hard Rock is a five-table room in Vancouver with more emphasis on NLHE and pot-limit Omaha.
Northern California
The World Poker Tour’s annual Shooting Star series, which includes four events, returns to Bay 101 in San Jose, Calif., on March 5-10. This is by far one of the most popular series on the WPT circuit with the game’s top players attending.
The kickoff will be a $2,100 no-limit hold’em tourney with a 250-player max and 50 alternates March 5-6 at 11 a.m. There will be another $2,100 event with a turbo structure at 3 p.m. March 8.
The $7,500 Shooting Star main event is the highlight of the series (March 6-10) with a 30K starting stack. The chipleaders at the end of the first two days will win $10K and there will be 50 of the best pros with $2,500 bounties on their heads.
Last year’s main drew the largest turnout in the 21-year span of the series with 753 entries as winner Stefan Schillhabel took home a whopping $1.3M. Some bounties will include Daniel Negreanu, 2016 WSOP champ champion Qui Nguyen and Bay Area natives Phil Hellmuth and Antonio Esfandiari.
Bay 101 hosts a two-day high roller with a $25K buy-in March 8-9 and will draw the biggest names in the game.
THUNDER VALLEY RESORT CASINO: The Lincoln property hosts the World Poker Tour Rolling Thunder series March 8-15 with five events. The first will be a three-day $250K guarantee with a buy-in of $1,100 on March 8, which will be followed by a one-day $100K guarantee with a $1,100 buy-in March 10.
The largest event of the series will be a $3,500 main event March 11-15 with a live-streamed final table March 15. Last year’s prize pool was $1.3M-plus and the champion was Harrison Gimbel, who took home $275K-plus.
Thunder Valley will hold a $1,100 knockout event with $500 bounties March 13 and an Action 8 event March 14 with a $550 buy-in. Numerous satellites run leading up to each event with many levels of buy-ins to accommodate every player.
JACKSON RANCHERIA CASINO RESORT: The poker room is hosting a $250 charity event for the Art School in the Pines on April 30 at 1 p.m. For more information, call 209-223-8469.
Reno
ATLANTIS CASINO RESORT: The WPT DeepStacks series runs March 16-27 within the beautiful setting of the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. Pre-registration is available online. The main event is $1,100 with a $200K guarantee. There are two starting flights (Day 1A, March 24, noon and Day 1B, March 25, noon). Cash-game players receive $4 in comps for every hour played until March 31.
PEPPERMILL RESORT SPA CASINO: Jason Somerville’s Run It Up Reno returns April 3-10. This weeklong poker festival will feature special guests, mini-seminars, cash games and tournaments. Visit runitup.com for details.
ELDORADO RESORT CASINO: Every Tuesday and Wednesday at 6 p.m., the poker room offers a deepstack with bounties. The event has a $30 buy-in with 8K chips and an optional $5 staff bonus for an extra 4K.
BOOMTOWN RENO: The $40 tourney is at 11 a.m. every Sunday.
HARVEY’S LAKE TAHOE: The $40 daily turbo starts at 10 a.m. with 1.5K in chips. Among the cash games found here are
$1-$2 NLHE and sometimes $4-$8 limit.
Southern California
BICYCLE HOTEL & CASINO: The World Series of Poker Circuit and Winnin’ O’ the Green tournament series return to the Bike on March 3-31.
If you use promo code WSOPC17 you will save 20 percent on all rooms at the hotel. The schedule includes the $1M guarantee Mega Millions and the WSOPC main event.
The WSOPC will be March 4-15. The $1,675 main event will have two Day 1s (March 12-13) at noon and players will be allowed one re-entry per flight. There also will be a $3,250 High Roller on March 13 at noon.
Go to thebike.com for full details, including satellite info and structures.
COMMERCE HOTEL AND CASINO: The L.A. Poker Classic was in full swing at press time in Los Angeles, but here’s an early recap: Jeffery Peterson of Corona captured Event 1 for $16,995. This $100K guarantee drew 1,079 entries to grow the prize pool to $161,850.
Event 2 was a $150K guarantee that drew 269 entries as Nicholas Guggino of San Diego took the title for $33,850.
Davin Anderson of Elk Grove won Event 3 ($350 bounty) for $19,270.
Other winners included James Douglas of Redondo Beach (Event 4, $350 Omaha/8, $8,500); Andreas Dassopoulos of Rancho Cucamonga (Event 5, $240 turbo, $62,455); Albert Shim of Cerritos (Event 6, $350 triple stud, $7,975); John Treolo of Topeka (Event 7, $350 stud/8, $9,800); Dan Heimiller of Lennox (Event 8, $350 O/8-stud/8, $9,260); Keith Rogers of Walnut (Event 9, $240 bounty, $10,150) and Grant Friedman of L.A. (Event 10, $175 All In or Fold bounty, $3,175).
You can find more winners and results at lapcnews.com. The series culminates in the WPT Championship, which concludes March 2 and will be recapped in the next issue.
HOLLYWOOD PARK: First Sunday of each month is a $25K guarantee for $230 and 30K chips. Levels 1-4 have 30-minute blinds and remaining levels are 20 minutes. For more information, please go to playhpc.com.
PALA CASINO: Antonio Woods of San Diego won $1,910 and the Pala Championship when his club flush bested Dwayne Copeland’s pair of deuces on the final hand. Copeland of Fallbrook won $1,600.
The event drew 50 players for a $6,260 prize pool. Steven Erickson of Yorba Linda was third ($1,002), followed by Mark Heintschel of Escondido ($559) and Rodney Clarita of Temecula ($501).
Las Vegas
Stations Casinos always have been popular among the Las Vegas locals. Tourists often have ventured away from the Strip and downtown to enjoy them, too. But now you can expect Stations poker rooms to attract even more tourists. As you may have heard, many casinos on the Vegas Strip began charging for parking last year.
You can expect virtually all of them to have parking fees in the near future. The locals casinos insist they’ll continue to offer guests free parking. This only affects the visitors who drive in from neighboring states or rent a car when in town, but if you do have a car while visiting Vegas, you may want to consider the Stations casinos as great options to stay and play.
The chain is once again offering the Jumbo Hold’em Progressive Bad Beat Jackpot. There are three stages for the jackpot prize. When the jackpot is less than $50K, it’s split among the players at the table where it’s hit. When the jackpot is $50K-$75K, it’s split among all players in the poker room. And when the jackpot exceeds $75K, every player in all of Stations poker rooms at the time earns a share of the prize.
The money is awarded as follows: The loser of the hand gets 50 percent, the winner gets 10 percent and the remaining players eligible split 40 percent. The qualifying losing hand starts at quad kings and reduces in rank each time the jackpot increases by $10K.
Stations has two other property-wide promotions. Flopped quads are worth $500 on Tuesdays and Saturdays and there’s a progressive jackpot for flopped quads. As each quad is hit, starting with deuces, the next ranked quad is the jackpot hand.
Let’s take a closer look at the five Stations poker rooms.
RED ROCK: The newest room in the chain, Red Rock is in Summerlin and has 20 tables. The $1-$2 NLHE game has a $100 minimum buy-in and a $300 max. A $2-$5 game almost always runs, the buy-in is $300-$1K.
Limit hold’em is available in $2-$4 and $4-$8 flavors, both featuring a half-kill. The minimum buy-ins are $20 and $40, respectively. Players can enjoy Omaha and Omaha/8 at the $4-$8 level, both versions have a $40 buy-in and a half-kill.
Tournaments run daily at noon and Sunday through Thursday at 6:30 p.m. All have guarantees. Sunday afternoon it’s a $125 deepstack starting with 13K chips, offering 30-minute levels and a $2,500 guarantee. Monday through Friday it’s $60, a 6K starting stack and a $1K guarantee. Saturday’s $100 bounty event ($25 bounties) has 20-minute levels, a 10K starting stack and a $2K guarantee.
Sunday evening is a $60 buy-in with 7K starting stack, 20-minute levels and a $2K guarantee. Mondays and Thursdays offer a $100 bounty event ($25 bounties), 10K starting stack, 20-minute levels and a $3,500 guarantee.
Tuesday and Wednesday it’s a $60 bounty tourney ($15 bounties) with 6K starting stack, 20-minute levels and a
$1K guarantee. All tournaments have a $10 optional add-on for 2K chips. Hitting quads in any tournament earns a free entry into a future tournament.
GREEN VALLEY RANCH: The 22-table room is Henderson. The $1-$2 game is $100-$300, and the $2-$5 is $200-$500. The busy $2-$4 limit game has a $20 buy-in. It also regularly runs a $3-$6-$9 limit game; it’s $3-$6 but the bet on the river is $9. It has a $30 buy-in. There’s also hold’em and Omaha at the $4-$8 level, a $40 minimum buy-in.
A $45 tournament runs daily at 10 a.m., starting with 3K chips and 20-minute levels. An additional $5 gets $1K extra chips. There is an $800 guarantee. There’s also a high-hand bonus for quads or better in the tournament.
SANTA FE STATION: The 14-table room is in the northwest part of Vegas. The limit action is $2-$4 ($20 minimum) $3-$6 ($30 minimum) and $4-$8 ($40 minimum). The room spreads $3-$6 Omaha ($30 minimum). The buy-in for the $1-$2 NLHE game is $100-$500.
There are two $50 tournaments daily. They all have a 6K starting stack, a $20 add-on for 4K chips and 20-minute levels. The tourneys run at noon, and Sunday through Thursday at 7 p.m. (Fridays and Saturdays at 6 p.m.). There are high-hand bonuses and a bad-beat jackpot for the tournament.
BOULDER STATION: The 11-table room is on Boulder Highway and is known for its wild $4-$8 Omaha game with a half-kill. The minimum buy-in is $40. The limit games come in $2-$4 and $4-$8 varieties ($20 and $40 minimums, respectively), the latter featuring a half-kill. The $1-$2 NLHE has a $50-$300 buy-in.
The room doesn’t run any regularly scheduled tournaments.
PALACE STATION: The nine-table room is the closest Stations casino to the Strip, just west on Sahara Avenue. There are no tournaments here and the room specializes in limit and spread-limit games. The $2-$6 spread-limit game has a $30 minimum buy-in and the $2-$4 game with a half-kill has a $20 minimum.
MONTE CARLO: The poker room has closed.
VENETIAN: Deep Stack Extravaganza runs March 27-April 16 and will offer $1.4M-plus in guarantees. The biggest event is the $1,600 SuperStack starting the first of its three starting flights April 6 and concluding with Day 3 on April 10. It starts players with 30K chips, has 60-minute levels and a $400K guarantee.
Other big events include a $400 SuperStack on March 27 with a $150K guarantee (three starting flights) and a $250, four-starting flight event with a $150K guarantee that starts April 11.
The Venetian also is offering a March Weekend Extravaganza March 14-19 with $340K in guarantees. A $600 SuperStack starts the first of its three starting days on the March 16 and offers a $200K guarantee.
— Check out Rob Solomon’s blog at robvegaspoker.blogspot.com.
Meet Joshua Weiss
An attorney and poker pro living in San Diego, Joshua Weiss started playing at 5 with his grandfather and siblings.
After watching a lot of the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event on ESPN while he was in his first year at law school, he began playing online and at a home game with friends. While in law school, he started playing big online tournaments. Sometimes these two pursuits collided. He was going deep in a tournament and it ran later than he expected so he had to finish in class.
“I ended up winning and several people around me cheered me on. My professor was not amused.”
His biggest cash came in 2016 when he earned $650K for 10th in the WSOP main. He also has done well in online tournaments.
“I chopped the Sunday Million on PokerStars for $100K when my equity was around $90K in 2009 and won both tournaments in the Full Tilt Poker Daily Double in one day (two tournaments with the same buy-in starting at the same time).”
On why he loves poker: “I love how the game is so dynamic, constantly changing in the short-term based on who you are playing against and in the long-term as strategy continually evolves. The game will always remain intellectually stimulating and never boring to me.”
When he isn’t playing poker or being an attorney, he loves to surf, travel and read.
“I’m also a bit of a craft beer connoisseur,” he said.
— Kittie Aleman
