Elk Valley Casino in Crescent City, Calif., is hosting three satellites to the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event. The dates are March 2-3, April 6-7 and May 4-5 at this Northern California property. Each satellite costs $250 and winners earn a $10K main-event seat and will get $2K for travel expenses. See the ad on Page 12 of this month’s issue for more information.
JACKSON RANCHERIA: The Jackson poker room has one of the most affordable tournament schedules in the NorCal region with a reasonable $2 entry fee on all of its daily events.
Mondays is a $1.5K guarantee bounty tournament with a $60 buy-in at 7 p.m. There are two events on Tuesdays, a $40 Omaha/8 tourney at 11 a.m. and a $1K guarantee for $50 at 7:30. Wednesdays host a $30 event at 11 a.m. and a $1K guarantee at 7:30 for $50.
On Thursdays, look for a crazy pineapple tourney at 11 a.m. for a $30 buy-in and a $50 satellite at 7:30 p.m. There is only one tournament on Fridays, a $2K guarantee for $60 at 11 a.m. Finally, on Saturdays, a $60 bounty event runs at 11 a.m.
Jackson Rancheria also offers quarterly Points Champion.ship tournaments where the top 36 point-earners over the three-month period will gain entry into the $220 event for only $20. These events have a $4K guarantee. The Point Championship tournaments for the rest of the year will be April 15, July 15 and Oct. 21, all starting at 1 p.m.
NAPA VALLEY CASINO: There are numerous promotions at this American Canyon property, including a New Player Bonus that gives first-time players $60 in chips for a $30 buy-in based on two hours of play. The room also has a $50K Monster Bad Beat (quad eights), a $3K Easy Bad Beat (aces full of 10s) and a $3K Omaha/8 Bad Beat (quad 10s).
STONES GAMBLING HALL: There’s a $50K guarantee Battle of the Ages Feb. 7-11. Call for details.
Pacific Northwest
MUCKLESHOOT CASINO: The $64K Tournament of Champions was Dec. 17 in Auburn, Wash., and brought together 80 players who qualified by winning one of the Sunday, Monday or Tuesday tournaments, 66 players who qualified by points and paid $250, and 25 players who paid the $400 buy-in. Muckleshoot contributed the remaining $37.5K.
None of the top-three finishers were one of the freerollers as Ken Churchill of Auburn won the title and $14K. Looking ahead, Muckleshoot hosts its Spring Classic, which will have five tourneys, March 14-19.
CHINOOK WINDS CASINO: The PacWest Poker Classic will run Feb. 17-25. It kicks off with a two-day $380 event that sports a $100K guarantee. Single-day events, all with guarantees, will be $140 NLHE, $330 NLHE, $120 seniors, $150 Oma-ha/8, $100 bounty, $150 pot-limit Big Omaha/8 and $200 NLHE. The two-day $500 main event begins Feb. 24 and has a $200K guarantee.
Chinook Winds is in Lincoln, Ore., about 50 miles from Portland, and is the 13th-largest poker room in the region with seven tables. The poker room is closed Wednesdays and Thursdays but not during the series.
CLEARWATER CASINO: The Suquamish, Wash., property is a tribal casino with an eight-table poker room 18 miles north.west of Seattle that caters mostly to locals. Monthly tournaments include the $100 Clearwater International event with $3K added and the Clearwater888, which costs $88 and the house adds $888 if there are four or more tables sold.
Southern California
BICYCLE CASINO: Jared Jaffee defeated a field of 687 entries to win the World Series of Poker Cir.cuit Main Event at Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens. He took home $211,220, his first WSOPC ring and a seat into the Global Casino Championship.
Jaffee, 36, has a WSOP bracelet, too. He won Event 58 ($1,500 Mixed Max) at the 2014 WSOP and has 31 cashes for more than a million dollars in earnings.
Other winners were William Collins (Event 1, $365 NLHE, $7K); Hermilo Vargas (Event 2, $365 Monster Stack, $71,195); Samuel Lee (Event 3, $365 NLHE, $9,900); Lang Lee (Event 4, $580 NLHE, $17,560); David Brookshire (Event 5, $365 Oma-ha/8, $8,285); Ryan Van Sanford (Event 6, $365 NLHE, $13,135); Xiao Ruan (Event 7, $1,125 NLHE, $28,195); Edward Liu (Event 8, $365 NLHE, $12,585); Calvin Roberts (Event 9, $365 NLHE, $16,970); Andrew Wisdom (Event 11, $3,250 high roller, $72,420) and Harry Arutyunyan (Event 12, $580 NLHE, $11,250).
CITY GALA: The third annual City Gala Celebrity Poker Tournament will be March 4 at Universal Studios in Hollywood. The 8 p.m. tournament costs $500 and that includes dinner and an open bar. For more information, go to citygala.org.
Las Vegas
SOUTH POINT: There’s a $50K guarantee for $250 with two starting flights, Feb. 1 and Feb. 2, with Day 2 on Feb. 3. Players get 10K chips and play 30-minute levels. You can enter both starting flights and if you qualify for Day 2 in both flights, you’ll receive a bonus payout. If 10 players or fewer qualify twice, they’ll each get $1K. If 11 or more players qualify twice, they’ll split $10K.
Qualifying for the Spring freeroll begins Feb. 1 and runs through April 30. Players need 120 hours over the three months to qualify and are eligible for bonus payouts for additional hours played. More than $190K in prize money will be awarded.
VENETIAN: This month, the room offers a loyalty-rewards promotion. In addition to the standard $1 per hour in comps for live play, players will earn additional comps for a minimum of 25 hours of play during the period, starting at 50 cents for 25 hours, with an additional 50 cents for every increment of 25 hours up to 250 hours. For 250 hours of live play or more during the month, the extra reward is $3 per hour.
BOULDER STATION: Bill Levy is the new manager. He’s been with Stations for five years and at Boulder for more than three years, recently as a day-shift supervisor.
The most popular game here is the $4-$8 Omaha high with a half-kill. The minimum buy-in is $40 and the action is wild. Always running is a $2-$4 limit game with a $20 mini.mum buy-in. A $1-$2 NLHE game with a $50-$300 min-max runs during busier periods.
Levy is intent on offering exciting promotions. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays, the hold’em games award $500 for flopping quads. Wednesdays and Thursdays award $25 or $50 for Aces Cracked. Four Flush Fridays offer $100 for making a flush in each suit. Sundays offer $200 for the high hand of the
shift three times a day.
The Omaha promos are varied, too. On Mondays, the highest hand wins $500. Progressive payouts for Steel Wheels are offered on Wednesday. High hand of the shift is worth $200 on Thursdays. On Sunday, the highest hand is worth $500. There’s also an Omaha bad-beat jackpot and payouts for royals ($100-$300).
There also have been having drawings during Vegas Golden Knights games, giving away $100 to a random hold’em player and a random Omaha player after the Knights score.
RIO: The World Series of Poker Circuit visits Feb. 16-27. The $1,675 main event has a $1M guarantee, with the first of its two starting flights Feb. 24. The opening event is a six-starting-flight $365 event with a $250K guarantee beginning Feb. 16. It has unlimited re-entry. A $2,200 high roller wraps up things Feb. 26.
ARIA: The U.S. Poker Open runs Feb. 1-9. This is a series of high rollers. In addition to two $10K and three $25K NLHE events, there’s a $10K PLO event Feb. 2 and a $25K Mixed Game Championship on Feb. 5. The $50K main event is a three-day event beginning Feb. 9. The player who wins the most money during the series will be named the U.S. Poker Open Champion and will receive the U.S. Poker Open Cup.
WYNN: The Wynn Classic runs Feb. 19-March 11. New this time is a $3,150 two-day NLHE event that starts Feb. 28. The $1,600 championship event has the first of three starting flights on March 1. It has a $1M guarantee. Most of the other tournaments have buy-ins of $400 or $550 with guarantees of be.tween $25K and $250K. A $400 PLO event with a $25K guarantee runs Feb. 20.
ORLEANS: A new eight-game mix tournament runs Wednesday nights at 7:05. Players start with 15K chips and play 20-minute levels to start, going to 30 minutes beginning with Level 5. The games are NLHE, PLO, deuce-to-seven triple draw, Omaha/8, limit hold’em, stud, stud/8 and razz. The games change every six hands. This is the only regularly scheduled tournament of its type in Vegas.
BELLAGIO: Ryan Tosoc of Chicago won the WPT Five Diamond Classic in December, taking home nearly $2M. Alex Foxen of New York took second for $1.1M and Michael Del Vecchio from Las Vegas grabbed $762K for third. The $10,400 event drew 800-plus players and had a prize pool close to $8M.
— Check out Rob Solomon’s blog at robvegaspoker.blogspot.com .
Reno
NUGGET: There will be a bounty freeroll tournament April 8 at 2 p.m. Qualify for the tourney Jan. 1-March 25. The top 40 players in total hours of live play will earn an entry. Each time a player knocks out another player there will be a $100 bounty awarded. First place pays $599, second $401, third $300, fourth $200, fifth $100, sixth-10th $60 and 11th-40th $40. Visit the poker room for more details.
CARSON VALLEY INN: Make quads in a hold’em cash game and spin the wheel for Inn Club points, cash, food and other prizes.
Meet Adrianne Hall
Poker dealer Adrianne Hall works at Ocean’s 11 Casino in Oceanside, Calif. “I have been there about 16 months and I love it so much.”
She has been playing since 2003; her dad taught her how to play Omaha on PokerStars.
“I would watch him play for hours and he finally let me go and that was it. I fell in love.”
Though she went to college multiple times and had a medical career, she was headed toward becoming a registered nurse when she realized, “I just wanted to play and
deal poker for a living.”
“My very first tournament was a limit tournament and I
cashed. I cashed four tournaments in a row. What a crazy
ride; I was hooked.”
She recently had a nice string of successes: At the 2017 WSOP, she came in 25th in Event 1 ($565 casino employees) for $1,874. Hall also cashed in Event 47 (Monster Stack), finishing 412th out of 6,716 entries for $4,235. Locally, she took sixth at the Hustler Casino’s $20K guarantee
in July for ($1,750).
“Other than poker, I love to sing. I tried out for American Idol in 2002 and almost made the show. I also love to play the piano.” — Kittie Aleman
