ISLAND CUP DEEP STACKS NO-LIMIT HOLD’EM TOURNAMENT
Mondays at 6pm
$60 + $10

The Treasure Island poker department will be hosting poker tournaments on Mondays each week. The tournament will be No-Limit Texas Hold’Em. Each player will receive $7,000 in tournament chips and the blinds will increase every thirty minutes. Players have to option to purchase a $5 add-on at initial seating which will increase their starting chip stack by $3,000. The tournaments will be limited to six tables, top five paid. Late entries, re-entries and alternates will be available until first break.

NO LIMIT HOLD ‘EM TOURNAMENT
Wednesdays | 6pm start | $50 buy-in | $10 entry fee
Thursdays | 7pm start | $40 buy-in | $10 entry feeSign up now for The Island’s No-Limit Texas Hold’em tournament! Each player will receive $2,000 in tournament chips and the tournament will continue until we have a winner. Players have the option to buy a $5 add-on at seating to start with 1,000 additional tournament chips.  Blinds increase every 20 minutes. The tournament will be limited to the first 60 guests, top five paid.

POKER GONE WILD
Friday, March 4 | 6pm

Join us for Poker Gone Wild where a Joker in each deck will be wild! There will be a $30 buy-in and a $10 entry fee! Each player will receive $2,000 in tournament chips. Blinds will increase every twenty minutes. Players have the option to buy a $5 add-on at seating to start with $1,000 additional tournament chips. Check-in begins at 5pm.

The tournament will be limited to the first 50 guests.

OMAHA TOURNAMENT
Second to last Saturday of each month
12 PM $40 + $10 – 4 tables MAX

20 minutes blinds – Top 10% paid – Omaha Eight or Better (High/Low) – start with 5000 in chips – Late entries, alternates and re-entries available until the 1st break Optional $5 add-on at seating for 3000 in chips

QUADS & STRAIGHT FLUSHES ALWAYS WIN

Any player on any game will receive $44 each time they turn their pocket pair into four of a kind. Any player on any game will receive $75 each time they have a straight flush using both hole cards.

ROYAL FLUSH PROGRESSIVES

Players must use one hole card to qualify for a royal flush, all other bad beat jackpot rules apply. Winners of a royal flush progressive will receive at least $100 or the progressive amount.

50+ Day Drawing
Wednesdays

Each Wednesday, the Poker Room will have a drawing for all players that are 50+, and have played at least one hour of Poker before 10pm. Top prize is $200! Drawing slips are now obtained in the Poker Room. You do not need to be present to win.

ACES CRACKED
Thursdays 10am – 6pm

While playing poker, you’ll have the opportunity to win extra cash! Any player that is dealt pocket Aces but loses the hand is given a bonus of $50 for $2 – $4 limit and 7 Card Stud, $75 for $2 – $6 spread, $3 – $6 limit and $4 – $8 limit. $100 for $6 – $12 limit, $2 – $10 spread, and $4 – $20 spread!

Once again in mid-April Canterbury Park will host the Minnesota State Poker Championship.  This tournament was held in the month of May last year due to Canterbury’s poker room reconstruction.  Minnesota-born but current Michigan resident Ryan Swanberg is the defending champion.  Jeremy Dresch, Matt Kirby, Blake Bohn and 3-Putts battled Swanberg late in the tournament but fell short.  Tough to say whether Swanberg will be back in town to defend his title, he hasn’t been seen on a Minnesota felt since being crowned champion.

Finals: Sunday, APRIL 17  10:30 AM

Directly Buy-In $1000+$100 or Win a Seat through a Qualifying Heat

Qualifying Heats: APRIL 13-16

$220+$30

Each Heat plays down to 20% of entrants who each win a seat into the Finals  

Heat #1   Wednesday, 4/13 at 6:30 pm

Heat #2   Thursday, 4/14 at 6:30 pm

Heat #3   Friday, 4/15 at 1:00 pm

Heat #4   Friday, 4/15 at 6:30 pm

Heat #5   Saturday, 4/16 at 10:30 am

Heat #6   Saturday, 4/16 at 6:30 pm

Since this is our second time doing the Freerolls during MSPT week, there have been several inquiries wondering how exactly it works.  So here it is. 

On Wednesday, April 6 and Thursday, April 7 at Diamond Jo Casino, we will be holding Freerolls to win $250 qualifier seats.  Yes free.  We have 3 – $250 seats to give away each night (6 total).  

The Freerolls will be single-table SNG satellite structure, 10 players per table.  Winner of the table gets the $250 seat.  3 tables each night will all go off at the same time.  If you’ve done the math, that means we have room for 30 players each night. 

If there are 30 or less players registered, then everyone plays.  If there are greater than 30 players registered, then we will hold a drawing for the 30 players.  

Registration starts at 4:30 PM, drawing will be held at 5:30 PM SHARP.  You must be in the poker room at the time your name is drawn to win your freeroll seat.  No exceptions, we will roll on without hesitation if you are not present and shouting when your name is called.  You must show identification to prove that is your name. 

Freeroll SNG’s will start immediately upon the 30^th name being drawn.  

No player may win more than one $250 qualifier seat.  If you win one Wednesday, you are not eligible for Thursday’s freeroll. 

If you are not lucky enough to have your name drawn, don’t worry, there will be $60, $90, $150 and $250 single-table SNG satellites going off all day, every day. 

A $250 multi-table qualifier will start at 7:00 PM every night that week starting Wednesday evening. 

The $100,000 Guarantee Prize Pool, $1,000+$100 buy-in, 2-day Main Event starts Saturday, April 9 at 5:00 PM. 

For details on the MSPT Freeroll, visit:

http://minnesotastatepokertour.com/freeroll.php

For more information and full MSPT – Diamond Jo schedule, visit:

www.MinnesotaStatePokerTour.com

With the Spring Poker Classic and the MSPT at Diamond Jo right around the corner, there is sure to be some shake up on the leaderboard.

Kye Longtin and Peixin Liu remain the top cashers in the state with five each.  Gary Pihlstrom, David Ramirez and David Rutledge are close behind with four.

Nevada, long an innovator when it comes to gambling, may soon take another big step in that direction by becoming the first state to legalize online poker.

A bill just introduced in that state’s legislature would require the state’s Gaming Commission to license operators of Internet poker as long as they meet basic standards regarding financial controls, anti-cheating provisions, and the like.

This may be just the turning point that advocates of online gaming have been looking for. First, the bill specifically says that existing i-gaming companies can’t be denied a poker license in Nevada just because they operate unlicensed operations now. That provision would likely keep the current market leaders at the top of the Nevada market, if the bill passes.

Second, the bill would allow the Nevada gaming commission to enter into agreements with other jurisdictions that permit online poker. These “compacts” would permit games and poker pots to be shared among these jurisdictions. That would bring in a lot of new players who don’t live in Nevada.

Other states like New Jersey and Iowa, as well as the District of Columbia, have been looking closely at Internet poker as well. But if Nevada, with the gambling infrastructure that it already has in place, become the first in this arena, the floodgates could open for legal online poker in many other states.

The passage of this bill would help some of the stragglers in Nevada’s casino industry and would permit millions of Americans to play poker (which, incidentally, the bill defines as a game “in which success over the long term is determined by the skill of the player”) on a legal and corruption-free basis.

In addition, legislation in Nevada, which is regarded as a thought leader in the gambling arena, may be able to give some momentum to federal legislation of the type that was proposed late last year by that state’s senior senator, Harry Reid.

Lance “kingpin023″ Harris, Mike “babyshark” Kachan and Wade “soggyvag2″ Woelfel do what they do and won online tournaments on three consecutive nights and on three different sites.

This is not unusaul for these three as they are all ranked in MN’s top 10.

On March 9th, Harris [photo] took down the Sniper $80K GTD on UltimateBet earning $19,960.

On March 10th, Woelfel won the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand for a cool $20,784.

Completing the trifecta on March 11th, Kachan housed the Full Tilt $33K GTD (1r+1a) making him $9,946 richer.

He may successfully blend with his surroundings making him difficult to identify.  He often looks no different than you or me; but make no mistake, Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy is out there.  His species, in fact, is more abundant than the local shark or even the common fish.  He assumes many different forms, though the most common physical manifestation is found in the flesh of the middle-aged white man.  Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy is typically loud with many poorly thought-out excuses, and he will only show his true colors, of course, when he is dealt the uncommon pairing of the Ace with the King.

During my recent field study, I ran across just such a creature and would like to share with you my experience.  As is standard, I was unaware that Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy was at my table.  He seemed so normal… until this hand…

I folded under-the-gun at an 8-16 game.  One player in middle position limped, as did the button.  The blinds called and the flop was taken four-handed.  The flop was Q-9-4 rainbow.  The small-blind bet.  The big-blind folded and both limpers called.  The turn was an off-suit 6.  The small-blind bet once again, got raised by the first limper, and after the button folded, the small-blind called the raise.  The river was a 7.  The small-blind checked, and the limper once again bet.  The small-blind called.  The limper turned over K-Q, and the small-blind flashed A-K as he irritatingly mucked his hand.

This peculiar style of play is exactly what defines Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy.  He manages, against all odds, to make a terrible play on every betting street.  First of all, he limps pre-flop in a very slim field.  A-K is a monster hand pre-flop, of course, and only grows in strength when nobody else chooses to raise.  You must two-bet.  Strike One. He then proceeds to bet the flop he completely airballed.  Out of position.  You make this bet only if you are maintaining aggression with a continuation bet, and that could only be attained by raising pre-flop.  Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy is constantly overwhelmed by the relative strength of his cards.  He simply can’t manage to calculate the situation with any accuracy at all.  He didn’t like his hand until he flopped nothing.  And then he bet.  Strike Two. Betting out on the turn has some value, considering the totally nonsensical way he’s already butchered his play of the hand.  But when Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy get raised, he absolutely must call, right?  I mean, after all, he has nothing.  Strike Three. For good measure and purposes of beating a dead horse, Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy gets a fourth strike… and he uses every bit of it by calling the river with the same nothing to which he’s been clinging since the beginning of the hand.  Strike Four.

Weirdly-Played-Ace-King-Guy is not a rarity.  He traditionally inhabits the 8-16 tables and will, properly utilized, pay your mortgage.

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