Editor’s note: Ante Up refrained from publishing its April issue because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While most of the news in the issue would have been obsolete, we are publishing online what we deem still newsworthy. There’s no predicting the future so while we may be mentioning some upcoming events, there is a very good chance they will be canceled as well. So, be sure to double check with poker rooms before returning to them.
The Orleans Summer Series was scheduled for May 29-July 7 in Las Vegas. It starts with a five-starting-flight event over that opening weekend (one on Friday, two each on Saturday and Sunday). It’s called Wild Deuces NLHE and has a $222 buy-in and a $222K guarantee.
Most weekdays at 11 a.m., the series runs a $150 tournament with a $25K guarantee. The evenings feature mostly disciplines other than hold’em, usually for $150.
The room is running its regular, hugely popular Friday night tournament, a $130 buy-in with a $20K guarantee during the series, starting at 6.
Two-day championship events with $400 buy-ins run June 6 for PLO, June 7 for HORSE, June 14 for Omaha/8 and June 21 for PLO/8. All of these have $50K guarantees. The $400 eight-game mix championship runs July 5-6 and has a $40K guarantee.
The two-day, $300 LIPS championship runs June 20. The $400 Seniors Poker Tour championship runs June 13-14.
The $400 NLHE championship has five-starting flights beginning June 26 and has a $400K guarantee, finishing up on June 29.
New this year is a Final Table Freeroll. All players who make a final table through July 2 are eligible for a $20K freeroll on July 3. Players who make more than one final table will start with extra chips. The first-place prize is $5K. The top 21 finishers will cash. See the ad on Pages 24-25.
VENETIAN LAS VEGAS: The Deepstack Championship Poker Series is slated to kick off May 4 and runs until July 26. There are numerous events with guarantees of $1M-plus.
The first of these is a $1,100 Mid-States Poker Tour event with four starting flights beginning June 1. The guarantee is $3M. Then a $1,600 MSPT event with three starting flights begins June 8 and features a $3M guarantee.
A $1,100 seniors tournament has the first of its two Day 1 flights June 15 and offers a $1M guarantee. The three-starting-flight $1,600 monster stack starts June 24 and has a $1.5M guarantee. There are two $1,100 Summer Saver events, each with a $1,100 buy-in and $1M guarantee. The first Day 1s for these are July 3 and July 7, respectively. A two-starting-flight $5K event begins July 14 and has a $2M guarantee.
A $1,100 pot-limit Omaha championship has two Day 1s beginning June 6 and guarantees $400K. The PLO/8 version with the same details starts June 28. The two-day LIPS event starts June 14 and has a $50K guarantee.
The two-starting-flight $1,100 Summer Kickoff event begins May 25 and has a $400K guarantee. There’s a $600 Epic Stack with five starting flights beginning June 19 and guarantees $750K.
Of course, the schedule is filled with plenty of shorter, smaller buy-in events, some as affordable as $200.
GOLDEN NUGGET: The Grand Series is supposed to be May 26-July 6. Once again, there are three tournaments daily. Throughout the series, a $150 tourney with a $25K guarantee runs at 1 p.m., except when displaced by a bigger event. Most evenings at 7, a $120 tournament with a $5K guarantee takes place. The
11 a.m. tournament is most often a non-hold’em discipline, usually with a $150 or $250 buy-in.
As in the past, the schedule on most weekends is filled by a huge multi-flight event, with three Day 1s each Thursday, Friday and Saturday and Day 2 on Sunday. These $200 buy-ins begin May 28, June 4, June 11 and July 2. Note: There are only two flights on June 11. The guarantees are $250K each, except for the last one on July 2, which has a $200K guarantee.
The $250 senior event runs June 20 with a $100K guarantee. The $1,100 senior high roller runs June 20-21. The $400 senior championship with a $100K guarantee runs June 21. A $250 seniors Omaha/8 tourney is June 23 with a $10K guarantee. The $1,100 Omaha/8 championship is June 15. There’s a $600 event with a $500K guarantee and three starting flights beginning June 25. The $1,100 HORSE championship is June 22-23.
SAHARA: The property at the north end of the Strip, formerly known as SLS, has restored the historic name Sahara and with it brought back poker to the remodeled casino. The beautiful room opened mid-February with seven tables and comfortable chairs that are getting rave reviews. Steven Pique, formerly of the Aria, is the poker operations manager.
The main cash game has been $1-$3 NLHE, with a $100 minimum, $300 maximum buy-in. A $4-$8 mixed game has been running fairly regularly, the minimum buy-in is $40. A $1-$2 PLO game with a $200-$500 min-max also is offered.
Promos included progressive high hands, Aces Cracked and a bonus for making flushes in all four suits. Players get $2 an hour in comps, which jumps to $3 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Call the room for information as the schedule evolves.
CAESARS PALACE: The poker room has begun offering promotions for cash games. The initial promo is the popular Aces Full. Players who hit aces full or better receive $100. That starts the clock and if they hit another high hand of aces full or better within 24 hours, the payout is an additional $499. A player catching a third high hand within 24 hours of the first hand receives $1K more.
The room is taking a $2-max jackpot drop per hand to fund the promo. That’s $1 at $10 and $2 at $30. That’s fairly standard for the rooms in Vegas. The switch to offering promos leaves Aria, Bellagio and Wynn as the only rooms in Vegas to not offer promotions for cash games.
— Check out Rob Solomon’s blog at robvegaspoker.blogspot.com.
Northern California
ELK VALLEY CASINO: Throughout May, tournament players can win seats to a variety of World Series of Poker events, should that series run this summer in Las Vegas. May 22-23 is the major promotion for one player to earn a $10K main-event seat.
JACKSON RANCHERIA: Players can earn tickets for a drawing by making a straight or better in any hold’em cash game or a flush or better in any Omaha cash game. The drawing begins May 23 at 4 p.m. and runs through 10 p.m. with the top prize $2,020.
TURLOCK POKER ROOM: The First Saturday of the Month promotion has a wide range of prizes, including two players heading to the WSOP’s $10K main event. There are 10 straight hours of giveaways the first Saturday of the month through June. The top prize is a $10K WSOP seat and $2,500 in cash for two of those monthly drawings.
TACHI PALACE: The poker room has closed, not because of the pandemic, however.
— Dan Ross, the northern California Ante Up Ambassador, is owner of Hold’em Media, including Hold’em Radio Podcast Network and the Hold’em Live Updates tournament reporting team. He can be reached at dan@holdemradio.com.
Reno
PEPPERMILL CASINO: Jason Somerville’s Run It Up series, which was supposed to run April 3-13, was canceled to protect players against catching the coronavirus. There have been no reports of the event being rescheduled.
ATLANTIS RESORT CASINO: Save the date for the Ante Up Poker Tour, which runs Aug. 20-30.
SILVER LEGACY: There’s a $100 high-hand promotion Monday-Friday, 5 a.m.-noon. The high hand must be a minimum of aces full to qualify.
NUGGET: Contact the poker room (775-356-3300) for information on the quarterly freeroll bounty tournaments. The top 40 players who log the most hours during a certain period will qualify.
Southern California
The RunGood Poker Series All-Stars edition debuted at Jamul Casino in February with plenty of celebrities on hand, including Jeremy Roenick, Nick Barnett, Jim Laslavic, Charlie Joiner, Steve Beuerlein, Garry Templeton and Bret Boone. Also there were 2017 WSOP main-event winner Scott Blumstein and Survivor star “Boston” Rob Mariano.
Joe Walters won the $575 main event and Jennifer Gianera was named the Jamul Casino champion. In addition to their winnings, both players won seats to play at the 64-player Pro-Am tournament in Las Vegas in December.
Walters finished Day 2 of the main the same way he finished Day 1B, on a surge and on top of the leaderboard. Walters took home $31,280 after navigating a field of 294 entrants, defeating Kevin Meyers ($23,505) heads-up.
Jounie Angcao topped 216 players in the kickoff $135 bounty event, taking home $3,254 after a four-way deal.
Richard Furfaro won the $200 bounty event after a five-way deal. He earned $2,166 plus bounties.
Gianera bested a field of 211 and took home $6,050 after a four-way deal in the $180 deepstack.
Glenn Adams won the $300 PLO event for $4,275. The $240 bounty and $100 series closer winners were Nadem Pattah and Aaron Knapp, taking home $1,935 and $1,437, respectively.
Tana Karn, founder and CEO of RunGoodGear, said, “The RunGood team and I are on Cloud 9 from the success of the first RunGood Poker Series at Jamul Casino.”
President and GM of Jamul, Mary Cheeks, said, “We were thrilled to host the RunGood Poker Series and have some new faces checking out our poker room”
Pacific Northwest
LAST FRONTIER CASINO: There’s a new late-night option in southwest Washington, as this room has started a Saturday $1-$3 no-limit hold’em game ($40–$500 buy-in) starting at midnight.
MUCKLESHOOT CASINO: The poker room confirmed on social media that there would be no spring series because of ongoing construction at the casino.
CHINOOK WINDS CASINO: Results from the PacWest Poker Classic were not available at press time. Look for them in a future issue.
PORTLAND MEADOWS POKER ROOM: The horse-racing facility has been demolished, but the new location of the poker room in Northeast Portland near Portland International Airport opened on March 4, after a soft open for the 14th annual Northwest Deaf Poker Series.
— Darrel Plant, the Pacific Northwest Ante Up Ambassador, is a poker blogger at mutantpoker.com.
