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Five Must-Play Poker Tournaments In Las Vegas This Summer

The summer schedule is almost here in Las Vegas, Nevada. The World Series of Poker is the main attraction, of course, but 2018 is the biggest year yet for events taking place outside of the Rio. Multi-million dollar guarantees are happening on a weekly basis at properties such as Wynn, Venetian, and ARIA. There are a whopping number of “must-play” tournaments this summer and below are the top-five not on the WSOP calendar with buy-ins ranging from $565 to $5,000.

1. $1,100 MSPT Venetian DeepStack Championship Poker Series (June 3-8)

The Venetian’s summer events feature major guarantees for relatively small buy-ins and this summer’s $3.5 million guaranteed should be one of the largest. The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) is teaming up with The Venetian to put on five live-streamed final tables and the opener for the combo should be an exciting one.

The 2017 schedule at Venetian featured the same buy-in and a $2.5 million guarantee that finished with 3,273 runners. A whopping $3.2 million was deposited in the prize pool and Nadar Kakhmazov topped the field to win a reported $440,029.

Players can count on a great structure as well with four starting flights of unlimited re-entry, a starting stack of 20,000, and 40-minute levels until completion.

Expect to see close to $4 million up for grabs by the time is all said and done with the winner emerging with close to 500 times their original investment.

2. $1,600 Wynn Summer Classic Championship (July 9-13)

The Wynn is one of the most preferred venues in poker and their Summer Classic Championship features peak amenities along with major cash.

The Wynn Championship is a $1,600 buy-in with $1.5 million guaranteed and starts five days after the final starting flight of the WSOP Main Event, giving players the ultimate “second chance” to end their summer on a high note.

The structure features 45-, 60-, and 75-minute levels and a trio of starting days. The 2017 Wynn finale carried the same buy-in with a $1 million guarantee that resulted in a $2.9 million prize pool. The tournament ended in a five-way deal with Olivier Busquet a part of it. Ardavan Yazdi took home the top figure of $237,610.

3. $3,500 MSPT Venetian DeepStack Championship Poker Series (June 25-June 30)

If you’re looking for a massive guarantee ($3.5 million), a loaded field and big blind ante, look no further than these dates. The 2016 and 2017 version of this event featured a $3 million guarantee and the stakes are even higher this time around.

MSPT and The Venetian are partnering to live stream this final table and should have top-notch talent on display. In the past two summers, prior final tablists included winners Javier Zarco and Andjelko Andrejevic along with Darren Elias, Brian Yoon, Omar Zazay, and Jonathan Karamalikis.

Entry for this tournament is available until Level 12 on Day 2 and features 60-minute levels for the duration of the event.

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4. $565 ARIA WPT 500 (June 25-July 3)

Small buy-in? Large prize pool? Elite venue? One of poker’s top brands?

The WPT 500 at ARIA features all of the above. The $1 million guarantee is just a starting number for how big this prize pool gets. Jon Borenstein emerged from a mammoth pack of 3,541 entrants to take home a career-high reported total of $230,000 last summer.

Past field sizes since the tournament premiered in 2014 are 3,599, 3,956, and 5,113.

Nine starting flights are available over the span of seven days before July’s Day 2. All Day 1s play into the money and give players the chance to cash re-enter at a later flight.

Bang for the buck is at a premium during the summer months and the ARIA is the king of this value beyond the WSOP.

5. $5,000 Card Player Poker Tour Venetian DeepStack Championship Poker Series (July 14-19)

The granddaddy of the WSOP Main Event post-lims is at Venetian once again. A $5,000 closer is the ultimate journey to the finish line to close out the summer for poker’s elite.

The Card Player Poker Tour brings a dynamite structure to The Venetian with 75-minute and 90-minute levels along with five days to reach a winner.

In previous years, the start of the event coincided with Day 5 of the Main Event and caught all traffic leaving the Rio. 2016 winner Jon Turner made back-to-back Day 5s on his way to a $536,858 score. In 2017, final tablists Ankush Mandavia and Renick Patterson both completed the feat.

This year’s Day 1A starts after nearly all other post-lims have completed and when the Main Event is at the final table which makes it interesting to see how big the 2018 field gets.

Still planning your summer schedule in Las Vegas? Be sure to check out the series schedules at the Aria, Venetian, Wynn, and of course the WSOP.

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Is One Pennsylvania County Luckier Than The Rest?

While the gambling news in the state consists of the Gaming Expansion Law, mini-casinos, and online gambling, the Pennsylvania Lottery released its 2016-2017 report card. Lehigh Valley Live decided to take a

Lottery residents and visitors to the Keystone State purchased $4 billion worth of lottery products including draw games, scratch offs, and fast plays. On average, prize money paid out equaled 65 cents of every dollar spent.

Each of the 67 counties produced winners. Lehigh Valley Live decided to take a look at which counties seemed “luckier” than others. After analyzing the data, it turned out some counties paid out more money per dollar than others.

The 10 counties with the highest Lotto payouts per dollar

If you spend your days dreaming about how you’ll spend your lottery windfall, you might want to head over to Montour County to make your dreams come true. Out of the $6.6 million in lottery sales, winners collected $6 million. That equates to 91 cents in prize money per every $1 spent on the lottery. By comparison, most slot machines in Pennsylvania casinos have a return to player of 89-90 cents per dollar.

It’s no secret that a lottery is a form of gambling. So it’s a bit ironic that none of the top 10 counties include a casino. And all of them had several townships that opted out of hosting a property during the mini-casino auction process. The top ten also had some of the smallest ticket sales.

The top 10 counties paying out the most prize money per dollar spent are:

County Ticket Sales Prize Money Per Dollar
Montour $6.6 million $.91
Somerset $22.5 million $.85
Clearfield $33.3 million $.79
McKean $13.6 million $.78
Cameron $2.3 million $.77
Lycoming $42.5 million $.77
Juniata $5.5 million $.75
Perry $11.9 million $.75
Blair $66.3 million $.74
Centre $28 million $.72

How counties with casinos stack up

Some people prefer to think of the lottery as the ticket out of their day job. And we’ve already established that it is a form of gambling.

Which begs the question, how did the 12 counties that host a casino do?

If you like to pick up a lottery ticket on your way home from a day at the tables, you might want to start gambling in Luzerne County. They paid 68 cents of every dollar spent on the lottery to a lucky winner.

Four of the counties with casinos paid out more than or equal to the average of 65 cents. And all but three counties sold more tickets than the top ten.

How the 12 counties with casinos fared:

County Casino Ticket Sales Prize Money Per Dollar
Luzerne Mohegan Sun Pocono $136.3 million $.68
Northampton Sands Bethlehem $77.9 million $.68
Erie Presque Isle Downs $86.4 million $.66
Fayetteville Lady Luck Nemacolin $54.6 million $.65
Bucks Parx Casino $169.5 million $.64
Dauphin Hollywood at Penn National $101.6 million $.64
Montgomery Valley Forge Casino $206.9 million $.63
Allegheny Rivers Casino $415.1 million $.62
Philadelphia SugarHouse Casino $544.1 million $.60
Delaware County Harrah’s Philadelphia $162.7 million $.60
Washington The Meadows Casino $63.4 million $.60
Monroe Mount Airy Casino $50.1 million $.59

How the PA Lottery benefits communities

The very first lottery ticket was sold on March 7, 1972, for 50 cents. The game featured weekly drawings and a grand prize of $1 million.

Whether you are a fan of the lottery or not, there is no denying the good it does for the state.

All of the proceeds generated through the lottery benefit programs for older Pennsylvanians. It is the only state lottery where 100 percent of its profits benefit the elderly.

During the 2016-2017 fiscal year, the lottery contributed over $1 billion to various elder programs. Since that first day in March, the lottery raised over $24.7 billion for programs, including:

  • Local services, senior centers, and Meals
  • Low-cost prescription assistance
  • Free and reduced-fare transportation
  • Care services
  • Property tax & rent rebates

The next time you buy a ticket, take comfort that while your dream of winning the lottery may not come true, you are making someone else’s life a little easier.

You know what they say … You can’t win if you don’t play. Depending on how you look at it, you can count yourself a winner either way.

The post Is One Pennsylvania County Luckier Than The Rest? appeared first on Play Pennsylvania.

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Opinion: Don’t Write Off Poker Variants Before You’ve Tried Them

My colleague Martin Derbyshire recently offered up his thoughts on PokerStars‘ newest cash game format, Split Hold’em. In his column, Marty called the game a potential “rake trap,” simply because it’s a split pot game. That is something I strongly disagree with.

In fact, I’d argue that Split Hold’em is a lot like Power Up, a game that looks like it’s built for recreational players, but is actually more skillful than traditional Hold’em. Unfortunately, because it takes a bit of effort to figure out, and because so many in the poker community are going to dismiss anything PokerStars does as a cash grab, it’s easier to look at the exterior than examine the inner workings of the game.

This is not going to turn into a defense of Split Hold’em or any other PokerStars game, rather it’s a defense of split pot games, and warning against believing what you might hear from the peanut gallery.

There’s a lot of money in those games

The simple fact is, most poker players don’t understand the intricacies of split pot games. And it’s not because I think it’s over anyone’s pay grade; rather, they simply lack the appropriate experience with these formats and have decided to regurgitate talking points, like:

  • It’s a showdown game, so you can’t bluff.
  • Starting hands run close in value so you can’t raise.

Or, as Marty said:

  • A good player’s edge is reduced in split pot games.
  • The pots are almost always split, so only the house wins.

To be fair, there are grains of truth in each of these statements, but as any high-low player will tell you, for the most part they’re exaggerations, bordering on falsehoods.

The nuance of split pot games

The skill gap between a bad player and a good player is reduced in a split pot game, at the same time, the skill gap between an ok player (which most people are in modern poker) and a good/great player increases.

And yes, high-low games definitely reduce variance. That leads to three different dynamics, all of which are, in my opinion, positive:

  • Even though it might take longer, and a bit more of their money will end up in the house’s hands, losing becomes inevitable for bad players.
  • Mediocre players lose very slowly, and are more likely to overestimate their skill level.
  • Winning players will have fewer big losses.

And as Marty said, the pots are often split. That might prolong the number of whacks the rake gets at each chip, but not enough to make winning impossible, or even difficult.

Even at the lower limits, high-low games can be some of the best in the casino.

When I played poker professionally Omaha 8 was my main game on the weekends. The games play much larger than the stakes, and it wasn’t uncommon for pots in a lowly $5/$10 KILL game to fall in the $800-$1,000 range during KILL rounds. When a higher games were spread, the play was only slightly better.

Split pot games aren’t “rake traps” or less skillful, they simply require different skills and a different approach.

The best way to describe a split pot game is that those half-pot wins are like digging a hole with a spoon, but every now and then someone hands you a shovel and you scoop the pot.

Without turning this into an Omaha 8 strategy guide, I’ll just leave it at: there’s plenty of money to be made in split pot games.

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Don’t knock it until you try it

Dismissing any game without giving it an honest assessment is a bad idea.

In my friendly home game (where a typical cash game pot is maybe $10 or $20) we often play a progressive Seven Card Stud game that requires you to have two of the following three things to win the pot:

  • The best five-card hand
  • The highest spade in the hole
  • The lowest spade in the hole

The game usually lasts five or more rounds, so the pot gets pretty big, relatively speaking.

On its surface, the game seems to have little skill and is little more than exercise in passing money back-and-forth, since no one except the nittiest player ever folds.

One poker playing friend found the game silly, and couldn’t understand why I’d like it since it had so little skill.

First, it’s fun. But there’s also a skillful element to it because of the lineup.

If every player was good it would be a stupid game with zero skill, but that’s not the case. The people I play with aren’t playing perfectly. The skill of this game is knowing when to bet.

Here’s how this game almost always plays out:

  • Someone juices the pot on the first round or two (we typically play $.25-$3 spread limit), and basically everyone is in for about $10-$15.
  • The game continues round after round and people are less willing to put money into the pot without a good shot at the pot.
  • At some point, someone starts to think they have the game won and makes a couple max bets on 6th-7th street. Sometimes they win, and sometimes the game goes on.

The difference is, when I start with a good hand (something like KK or QQ with the King or Queen of Spades in the hole) I’m hitting the pot pretty much throughout, so instead of getting $6 out of every player I’ll get $12-$15 when I have an equity advantage.

Even though it’s basically a showdown game, when I win, I win a $150 pot. When everyone else wins, they win $100. If you know when to bet, this game is a lot like getting odds on a coin flip.

My point is, it would be easy to just dismiss it as a game where everyone basically has the same equity, just as it’s easy to repeat certain myths about split pot games.

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Poker Industry PRO: Partypoker to Launch Euro Shared Liquidity This Month–and ElkY Will Head It

Just days after receiving its shared liquidity license, partypoker has announced that the former PokerStars sponsored pro will help promote the imminent launch of partypoker.eu.

French online poker professional and former PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier has joined partypoker as its latest ambassador. He will help promote “partypoker.eu,” the group’s upcoming European online poker network which will combine French and Spanish players, which the company says will launch later this month.

Partypoker received authorization from French regulator ARJEL just last week which allows it to form a cross-border shared liquidity pool between France and Spain.

Read the full article on pokerfuse →

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Poker Industry PRO: “Long Live Poker”: A Cash Game-Only “Run it Once Poker” to Launch This Summer

Phil Galfond’s project to launch a real money online poker room is reportedly nearing a real money launch.

Run It Once Poker, the long-delayed real money poker site headed by professional poker player and coach Phil Galfond, will see a limited launch this summer, the company has announced.

Initially, the site will offer cash games only and will focus on the popular No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha variants. It will operate globally under its multi-jurisdictional license in Malta where its primary offices are based. The company has also been issued a license from the UK Gambling Commission to launch in the UK.

Read the full article on pokerfuse →

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NJ Online Casinos Destroy Record In March With $25.6 Million In Revenue

Editor’s note: New Jersey releases the gross revenue numbers for its regulated online poker sites and NJ online casinos each month, generally about two weeks after the close of the month. New Jersey online casinos didn’t just squeak past the old record for revenue in March. They destroyed it. Online casino and poker generated $25.6 million in the month, the […]

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