Dates are online, June 1st - July 4th
http://www.goldennugget.com/lasvegas...okerseries.asp

I really enjoyed the 2012 Series (I had a blast playing the Badugi and 8-game Mix), the venue is great, the structures are amazing and the Wi-Fi is free...

I just hope they don't raise the rake again ! Can't wait for the final schedule.

The pic of Howard is a little off-putting. Guess most of the Nugget's target audience doesn't know or care.

Either way, the series should be fun

This. They had those pics last year when they could have been considered controversial. This year, it's probably spilled over into bad taste.

Either way, I popped in a couple of times this year (2012), but numbers weren't all that great and I never actually played an event. I played at WSOP / DSE / Wynn / Binions, but not here. Perhaps lower rake will pull in better numbers?

Only played the main and imo it started off great with an awesome "early" structure.

However, after the dinner break they started skipping key levels and when I asked the Tournament Director about it he really didn't have a good answer.

As for the other tournaments - well, the crowds were pretty poor since there were tournaments going on everywhere basically.

Are you saying they skipped levels printed on a structure sheet? Or just levels you thought should be there?
I'd raise hell if they changed from a printed structure.

"As for the other tournaments - well, the crowds were pretty poor since there were tournaments going on everywhere basically."


I think that the WSOP daily deepestacks (especially the 2pm) is really pulling many of the players from the other tournament series. They get tons of runners with big prize pools (no matter what your opinion is of the structure). The 2pm would regularly get over 1000 entries from the second week to the sixth week of the WSOP. I think competing tourneys will have to come up with some good ideas to lure back these players.

Played this at the last minute and they followed the structure that was on their sheet.

However, if I remember correctly they started skipping levels that didn't make sense at all(especially for a main event)

It went from 300-600 to 500-1000 to 800-1600.

Totally ridiculous for a $1090 main event.

^^this

I think the Venetian and Wynn could gain some traction if they post some guarantees. Just the mention of guarantees increases the field size, and they may need to look at more events with about $350 buy-in. If playing a $1K event may as well play in $1K to $2500 events at the Rio.

This schedule is amazing though. So great to see so many non-NLHE tourneys. Are there other good series that have mixed games, 2-7td, badugi, etc?

link to schedule

http://www.goldennugget.com/lasvegas/pdf/gps.pdf

I did not remember it this way so I had to look it up. It went 300-600, 400-800. 500-1000 before skipping to 800-1600. They also skipped 1200-2400. But, you did start with 25000 starting chips and the rounds were one hour long from the start. 177 people entered and first paid a little over 46k. I thought overall it was the best tournament I played last year. Everyone can form their own conclusions, but if a majority of the stronger players are elsewhere that improves the chances for those who are merely hobbyists like me.

I wish they would throw in a larger buy-in for each discipline. Maybe like a 350 or 400 BI rather than just day after day of small BI events. I also think they would do well to put the non-HE events later in the day (maybe 2) so they could get some of the Noon bustouts jumping into these events. I went down 1 day and the NLHE event had 60ish while the concurrent PLO only had like 25-30.

They have to set themselves apart from the other series though. If they add a $350 or $400 event you are competing with the Venetian.

they have an open face chinese tourney

thats pretty cool. dont think they had one last year. maybe im wrong.

I would like to see non-NLHE MTTs start at ~2:00 too. That would make late registration until ~4:00.

They did try having larger buyins ($550) for each discipline a couple years ago, but they haven't tried since...likely b/c it scared lots of people away.


Last year, some of the non-NLHE events were running on the same day as their WSOP counterpart. As an example, the WSOP $1500 PLO8 ran same day as a $200 PLO8 at the Golden Nugget on June 26. If Golden Nugget pushed it back 1-2 days, it would have gotten a lot more runners (the same people who played the WSOP event would play the Golden Nugget one).

I remember emailing the Golden Nugget TD about the MTT series last year with this problem. They didn't want to change it either, citing that "we're not competing with those higher buyin MTTs" even though the non-NLHE player pool is small and they would play the event the next day...

Also, the fact that GN released the schedule before WSOP announced their schedule further cements their line of thinking (assuming it's the same TD).

Some side notes:
1. It looks like with past Venetian Deep Stack Series I & II this year, they may be introducing 11AM (limit MTTs) & 3PM (PLO/PLO8) MTTs for non-NLHE games. Hopefully, they'll try to utilize this spot and continue to add many non-NLHE MTTs.
2. Wynn and Binion's could also provide some competition. At least they try to compliment the WSOP schedule instead of compete. In fact, Binion's changed a 6-max NLHE to PLO8 the day before the $1500 WSOP PLO8 event b/c players were asking last year.


Open Face Chinese tourneys are new to the poker MTT world. I think 2013 PCA was the first, with LAPC being 2nd. It's good that they're going to run one. Hopefully, others will too.

This is very smart in my opinion. I played Binion's 6-max tourneys a couple of days before the WSOP events and it helped me get my head in the right spot. These smaller series should do this more frequently - it benefits everyone as field sizes will probably be bigger (better for host) and players get bigger prize pools as well as WSOP players getting a chance to "get their eye in" and other players getting to play against (potentially) more experienced players...

The Golden Nugget series is really not too bad, but it pales in comparison to the Venetian. It's selection of Mixed games are great, but the buy ins are too low to attract a lot of players. Structures are decent, but it kind of becomes a crap shoot at the end. You will get some of the second tier pros from Las Vegas in some of these events, but other than that, the fields are very soft. First place prizes of $7,500-$10,000 just do not do it when you can win $50K+ at the Venetian or WSOP deepstack. It's location is the biggest downfall that I do not believe it will ever overcome, but if your new to poker tournaments this may be a good place to start, as the rooms/pool are nice and very cheap.

Binions is not worth the time. The staff is above average, but the structures and payouts are just not good enough. I am interested to see what the Wynn has to offer, but they do not have a good dedicated place to hold their events other than the middle of the casino.

They realize they can't compete with the WSOP or the DSE and so they cater to the lower end of the tourney spectrum. These are pretty good tourney's (have played several) with decent fields and nice payouts.

Outside the WSOP, the Nug's Grand Poker Series is the best series in town for non-NLHE events in June. The Binion's Poker Classic usually includes a few Omaha 8, Stud 8, PLO and HORSE events. The Venetian Deepstack III usually has some Omaha 8, PLO and HORSE. And last year Caesar's had an Omaha 8 as well as several PLO and PLO 8 events. Venetian events are pricier and the Caesar's events are mostly even lower buy-in than the Golden Nugget events.

I wish the Nugget would do more (as others have suggested here) to foreshadow the WSOP schedule so that WSOP players could use the Grand Poker Series as a warm up to playing the bigger buy-in events in the WSOP.

But overall, non-NLHE players should be very appreciative that the Nug is spreading such a diverse array of tournaments. The field sizes and prize pools may be too small to attract local grinders, but they are not particularly the folks I am hoping to play against anyway.

I am hoping my WSOP schedule will allow me to play the Pineapple tournament, as that sounds fun and will be a rare opportunity. Also the Tag Team Limit Hold'em/Omaha 8 event sounds like a lot of fun. And at $125 neither is a big risk, so perhaps a fair number of players will take a flyer at these events.

I emailed the Nug poker room this morning to ask for more details on these two events as to structure and trying to clarify whether the Pineapple event is in fact Crazy Pineapple (discard one after the flop betting) or regular Pineapple (discard one before the flop). I'll post the answers here if I get any.

That is so dumb. Last year the Nugget also had a PLO 8 tournament on the same day that Binions was spreading a PLO tournament. Seems foolish.

As badly as I'd like to play PLO-8 tourney there, I don't think I can do it until the former FTP pros' images are removed from the hompage - at least Lederer's.

Just cluelessness or laziness, I suppose, but does anyone know a reason on earth they would keep those up?

I wrote them an email asking for an explanation. I'll share if I get an entertaining (positive or negative) response.

MDM

Looking forward to hearing any response. These tournaments are a good value and allow players interested in trying something new to do so without putting too much at stake.

I am considering playing one of the HORSE events at the Grand Poker Series. I'm a little leery though, since I have heard reports of poor dealer performance at last year's series. With the WSOP running concurrently and depleting the dealer pool, should I be concerned with dealer competency in these lesser-played variants?

Any help from last year's players would be appreciated.

I played and cashed in a NL tournament from a few summers ago and I will say that the dealers at GN were among the worst ever. We had one in the box with 4-5 tables left and she had no clue where to start dealing. The players in the 1 and 10 seats basically collected the antes. It was sad. And that was a NL tournament. With that said some of the players were among the worst you will see which is why it is worth playing. I think the dealers will be worse than what you see at the WSOP, Venetian, Wynn, or Caesars tournaments.

Hello, are there structures available for this schedule yet?