Summer poker tournament series guide for Las Vegas

Johnny Kampis : May 29th, 2008

The World Series of Poker draws the poker crowds to Las Vegas like no other tournament. This summer casinos are piggybacking on that success like never before as there are at least six tournament series running concurrently with the WSOP. This article offers a quick rundown of the major alternatives (or additions) to the WSOP tournament schedule.

These include:

* The Deep Stack Extravaganza at the Venetian
* The Orleans Open at the Orleans
* The Bellagio Cup at the Bellagio
* The Mega Stack Series at Caesars Palace
* The Binion’s Poker Classic at Binion’s
* The Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget

The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza – the third incarnation of that tournament in 2008 – will run May 29-July 16, with buy ins ranging from $330 to the $5,000 main event. There will also be a handful of other events included, such as Pot-Limit Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo and HORSE.

Rio’s sister property Caesars Palace will hold its own deep stack tournament series called the Mega Stack Series. The event, running from June 1 to July 9, features mostly NLHE events with buy ins from $225 to $540 with some other games included. A $1,060 NLHE main event will be July 7-9.

The popular World Poker Tour event Bellagio Cup will be held behind the fountains in the Fontana Lounge on July 1-17. The NLHE only tournament series will have buy ins ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 for preliminary events with a $15,000 WPT main event. There will be three days of $1,500 super satellites for players to punch their ticket to the big one.

The Binion’s Poker Classic, which is mostly designed to mirror the WSOP with similar events (but at a tenth of the buy in), will run from May 28 to July 8, making it the longest of the competing summer tournament series. It also has the greatest variety of events. Many tournaments are $150 and the series concludes with a $2,000 championship NLHE event.

The Golden Nugget will hold its brand new poker series in its recently completed event center facing Fremont Street. The Grand Poker Series will run June 6-July 6 with buy ins ranging from $225 to a $1,080 championship NLHE event. The series opens with a charity event hosted by television personality Montel Williams to benefit Multiple Sclerosis.

The Orleans Open returns July 5-20 with a greater variety of events, from Limit Hold’em to Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo to Battle of the Ages and Battle of the Sexes tournaments. There will be nightly $200 second chance NLHE tournaments.