Looking to enter one of the bigger tournaments in Black Hawk, so I'm trying to decide between the HPT in July or the CPC in August. I'm thinking I'll play in one of the ME qualifiers or a deep stack. I'm interested in hearing from anyone that has played in these tournaments. How was your experience, which one do you prefer, etc.?

BTW, I realize that GG's website isn't showing a HPT in July, but the HPT website does. I spoke to someone in the GG's poker room today. They said that the contract has not been finalized, so they're not advertising it yet. However, they said that it is close to a sure thing.

Thanks in advance.

Hit me up with questions

I don't know the answer to your question, but if you call the poker room they can direct you to the right person to answer this. The number can be found in the Bravo app, or by using the Google.

If you're thinking about playing the main event in one of these tournament series, then there are a few things to consider:

1-The buy-in for the HPT is $1650 versus $1100 for CPC.
2-The HPT is a much bigger event and draws from a much larger player pool. There are people that travel the HPT circuit, whereas CPC is mostly locals, with a handful of people from New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska. One consequence of this is that you're likely to face some tougher competition in the HPT.
3-This may be the most important thing to consider: the CPC main that was just completed had a first place prize of about $60,000. The HPT main that finished in February had a first place prize of about $246,000.

I would take what they say in the poker room at GG vis a vis HPT with a grain of salt. While I do hope they are successful at retaining this series, Ameristar owns the rights to HPT and you never really know what might happen until a contract is signed. I doubt that Ameristar BH wants to host this, it just feeds additional players into the cash game pool for them.

I'd speculate that the "July" HPT is probably going to be closer to the entry size of a CPC. The main event is smaller ($1100 vs 1650) and with the calendar spot right after WSOP, I don't think it will attract quite as many out of town players as the usual spring and fall HPT events.

The inclusion "un-local" players for the HPT's is the main difference between the two. I usually play the 2 day ~$350 Kickoff event of each series. The CPC runs around 400+ total entries, the HPT around 800+.

Thanks for the insight. That's very helpful.

Any follow up on this? Did you call gaming or get any info from GG about this?

FWIW, I suspect this is just poor procedures or incompetence rather than stealing. You'd have to have some pretty big brass ones to stuff $$$ in your pocket at the desk at GG, in full view of the cameras.

And I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but the poker room manager from GG is now back dealing at Astar as of Friday. No idea what happened there but if he was under suspicion of stealing he would not have a job in gaming any more. Nice guy, I hope things work out for him at Astar.

For whoever is traveling to Blackhawk wondering how to bring plenty of cash without risking traveling with it; you're basically s.o.l.
Unless your Atm limit satisfies your level of gambling. Their check cashing system may work, but I was told you have to enroll in person at the cage.
No cashiers checks, no wires. Unless I'm wrong, someone please correct me and message me details. Thanks all

Ozzy

Ozzy - you can cash checks @ the Ameristar cage but you need a physical check if you haven't done it before (ie - "enroll in person @ the cage"). I don't remember the limits but I believe it's 5k per day. I've done it several times before when I didn't have cash with me and it's fairly painless.

You mentioned banking @ Chase in your previous post. While there aren't any Chase branches in BH, there are Chase locations all over CO. The 2 biggest cities closest to BH are Golden & Evergreen. Both have Chase branches. I'd guess closest would probably be about ~20 mins away, if that.

Thanks for all the info and time u took to respond. I will look at ameristar and see what's going on. I just don't like carrying 10k+ through airport or in a cab. I'll try the check deal. I guess max bet appears to be $100, so I guess a huge roll won't be necessary; but if you plan on going for 2 weeks or so, I wanna have access..cheers

I did contact gaming (online submission) but have not received any response.

Anyyone wanna help trainees practice dealing with no real money involved? In north hylands tonight 6-9:30PM. We meet Monday thru Thursday 6-9:30. Pm me if interested.

FYI the most recent episode of the Poker Fraud Alert podcast has a segment on the "scandal" at the Golden Gates rebuy tournament. Starts at about the 4 hour 50 minute mark. I'd link it but I know 2+2 would disapprove of that site being mentioned. The host tends to think everybody is guilty until proven otherwise, but still interesting to hear his take for whatever it's worth.

thanks for this information...great listen!

I've always been suspicious of the floor staff at this poker room.

WHAT the Hell!! "A good chance they are stealing the Money"!

It's not on GG's website yet, but I've confirmed that the HPT will be there in July. See the HPT website for the schedule & details.

Anyone heading up to the DeathStar for 1-2/100 Friday?

For anyone who plays at ameristar regularly, check your comps. There were problems with their rewards system and they had to make "adjustments" to player accounts. I've logged over 400 hours this year in the 30/60 game and they "adjusted" my comps to -$160 (yes, negative comps). The rewards kiosk machine said I had +$230 in rewards before these adjustments.

It was explained to me that people's comps had not been charged for food the last 3 months, and all those charges hit retroactively last night.

For anyone who ended up with a negative balance, they are being reset to $0.

Assuming this is correct, you got $160 in free food.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Nothing is free from them with the amount of rake they drop (along with the structure of the rake)

They should fix their system and get it right going forward instead of backlogging and taking away comp dollars from players which they thought they had

Leave it to poker players to get $160 in free food and still find something to complain about.

Leave it to a poker player to complain about a complaint

If you were playing this weekend you'd be hearing the entire room complain about it

I am personally going take my free food from the last few months and move on, but if you want to be bitter about it that's your choice. My initial concern was that we got screwed, but nothing seems to have been taken away that was rightfully ours in the 1st place.

is most of golden gates poker action in the daily tournaments? just curious cause i never see more than 4 tables up on bravo, and im wondering what the turnouts are like during the week for the dailies.

Yes, GG is primarily a tournament room. Someone else will have to answer about turnouts.

I was told Ameristar has decided as of today to leave players in the negatives and players will have to earn their way with hours/points to get back in the positive