Vegas Poker Scene - June 2018 Ante Up Column

Here's my newest column for Ante Up. The link for it on the Ante Up website is here.   Remember, my contribution is embedded in the entire West Coast report.  So below is just my Vegas report. 

The magazine should be in your local poker room by now. 


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The South Point Poker Room, in conjunction with Helix Poker, is hosting some women’s events in late June. A $300 event with a $20K guarantee is June 27. Players get 20K chips and play 30-minute levels. There also are $130 satellites for the WSOP Ladies Championship on June 26. Pro Jamie Kerstetter hosts Helix Poker University on June 26. Admission is $100 but there’s a $10 discount for registering for the $300 event the next day.

South Point has added some variety to its 2 p.m. tournaments. Mondays and Wednesdays offer a micro-tournament, with a $20 buy-in for 2K chips and $20 add-ons of $2K chips available for the first six 15-minute levels. 

Tuesdays and Thursdays offer a $50 tournament with $30 bounties. Players start with 7,500 chips and play 15-minute levels. A double-stack event runs Fridays. Players start with 5K chips but can take 5K more at any time during the first six levels at no more cost. The levels are 15 minutes.

A $125 Stamina tournament runs Saturdays. Players start with 20K chips and play 30-minute levels. The breaks are every four levels but they are only five minutes; that’s where the stamina comes in. A $50 Survivor runs on Sunday, with the final 10 percent of the field splitting the prize pool. The starting stack is 7,500 and the levels are 15 minutes.
High hands hit in tournaments receive cash. Quads are worth $25, straight flushes earn $50 and royals win three times the tournament buy-in.

VENETIAN LAS VEGAS: David Ormsby of Canada took home $62K in the $1,100 doublestack in the DeepStack Extravaganza. Robert Elliott of Trussville, Ala., earned $38K for second and Kathryn Lindsay from West Hollywood, Calif., claimed $28K for third. The event attracted 278 players, creating a $271K prize pool, easily surpassing the $200K guarantee.

The series had another $200K guarantee, a $600 doublestack, as local Dustin Goff took first, winning $46K. Colorado’s Don Patrick received $29K for second and Tamas Lendvai of Vegas won $21K for third. There were 413 entrants and the prize pool was $210K.

The room is running a Quad Royal promotion for royal flushes. Initially, all four suits are eligible. Once a suit is hit, it’s no longer available for the promo. First suit to hit wins $1,250. The second suit wins $2,500. The third wins $5K and the last suit is worth $10K. After all four suits are hit, the promo restarts. Players must use both cards in their hand to qualify.

This is in addition to the $20K static bad-beat jackpot (quad deuces). The losing hand gets $10K, winning hand gets $5K and the rest of the table shares $5K. Again, both cards must play.

WYNN: Viacheslav Fentisov took first in the Signature Weekend $600 main event in April, earning $58K. Ryan LaPlante earned $38K for second and Faye Sonntag took third for $26K. All three hail from Las Vegas. The prize pool was $293K for the $250K guaranteed event. There were 560 entrants.

WESTGATE: The Heartland Poker Tour visited in early April. The $1,650 main event drew 329 entrants. Terry Fleisher was the winner, taking home $114K.  Jeremy Joseph received $72K for second and Kainalu McCue-Unciano claimed $48K for third. The prize pool was $500K.

CLUB FORTUNE: The small but friendly locals room in Henderson offers fine, affordable buy-in tournament action. Every Saturday at 2 p.m., a $40 tourney runs. Players get a 5K stack and can get another 3K for a $5 dealer bonus.  The levels start at 20 minutes and switch to 15 minutes starting with Level 4.

Every other Wednesday, a $65 deepstack is offered. Players get 15K chips, with a $5 add-on for another 4K. The levels are 20 minutes.

Every other Monday, there’s a $45 bounty event. Players get 7K chips with a $5 dealer add-on for 3K more and play 15-minute levels. The bounty is $10 and there’s also one $15 mystery bounty per table, which is funded by the house.
Players can get 1K in chips for all tournaments for bringing a canned-food donation. All tournaments have high-hand bonuses and tournament chips are awarded for quads or better. 

The cash games include a 50-cent-$1 NLHE game with a buy-in of $20-$200. There’s also a $1-$6 spread-limit game with a $20 minimum buy-in and no max. A $1-$2 NLHE game runs less often with a $100-$300 buy-in.

Promos include a progressive bad-beat jackpot. The losing hands must be quads or better and the losing hand gets 50 percent, the winning hand gets 25 percent and the table shares 25 percent. The high-hand payouts also are progressive. Quads start at $50, straight flushes at $75 and royals at $100. All high hands are worth $222 on Tuesdays.

Players get a $100 bonus for making all four flushes on Thursdays and Fridays. A $1K biweekly freeroll is available to the first 30 players to play 20 hours in the two-week period before the freeroll.

Players get $1 an hour in comps and from noon to 2 p.m., the comps are $5 an hour.

MANDALAY BAY: Kay White has retired. The new poker room manager is Joe Mignano, who has been at Mandalay Bay for five years, most recently as the swing-shift manager.

GREEN VALLEY RANCH: Longtime poker legend Kathy Raymond has come out of retirement to take over the reins of the Henderson poker room, which is part of the Stations chain. Raymond had a long career at Foxwoods before coming west to open The Venetian Poker Room in 2006. She retired from there in 2015. 

SUNCOAST: The poker room closed in April.