Rio Video Poker Tournament

Posted By admin On 22/07/22
  1. Rio Poker Overview Part of Rio Casino Resort. The Sunday night poker tournaments at Rio Casino are getting more popular by the week. Buy-ins are R500. The game starts at 3pm and entries need to be submitted before 2:45pm.
  2. Tournament / event Country Starts Ends Buy-in Fee; Asian Poker Tour - APT Taiwan CTP (Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Club - Taipei City), Taipei City, TPE 2021-02-27: 2021-03-08: TWDChampionships.
  3. Gold Coast: For video poker fans who are B Connected club members, there's a $5,000 free video poker tournament every Friday from 2-10 p.m. In Tournament Alley. The first-place winner will get $1,500. You get your free tournament entry ticket at a kiosk after earning 300 same-day points.
  4. Answer 1 of 3: We will be going to Vegas in July, staying on a Rio offer for a video poker tournament. I was wondering if anyone that has participated in a Rio VP tournament would let me know a little about how the tournament works. A few questions I have are: It.

Inside the casino, the Poker Room is located next to the Race and Sportsbook, and offers 14 tables with free Wi-Fi and USB charging ports (for mobile devices) at each seat. Easy access to the Poker Room with ample parking is available in the nearby Carnival World.

Stu D. Hoss is a recently retired Air Force aviator. He has visited and served in over 40 countries including flying combat missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Horn of Africa. Most of it under the guise of keeping the world safe for democracy, better blackjack, and for a few other personal reasons. He has been playing blackjack for almost 20 years and cut his teeth on the tables of South Lake Tahoe during flight training in Northern CA. Mr. Hoss uses basic strategy and the HiLo count method to give himself a chance against the house edge. He currently resides in NV and is weighing his options for a second career.

On a surprisingly mild late spring afternoon in the Vegas Valley, I sauntered to the mailbox expecting to find the usual junk mail and a couple of bills, which I did. Amongst all that was a mailer from the Four Queens Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas. Experience has taught me that casino mail is never a bad thing. I quickly opened the item to find this on the first page: 'Come join us for a Sizzlin’ tournament! The Four Queens invites you to our $12,000 Sizzlin’ Video Poker Tournament June 17-19, 2011 where you can cool down but the games stay HOT!'

Needless to say, I grabbed my calendar to check the dates and reached for the telephone. A quick call to reservations and I was in. I’d be playing my first video poker tournament! The following is the story of that tournament and some things to consider when playing a video poker tourney, or any tournament for that matter.

The first thing to think about when playing any tournament is its equity. Simply put, this means are all entry fees returned in prizes? If so, you have a 100 percent equity tournament. If the equity is less than 100 percent, you have a negative equity tournament and you might be best served to reconsider your participation. The Sizzlin’ Summer Tournament made this calculation easy. The tournament was an invite-only offer from casino marketing, according to the casino’s Special Events Manager. There was no entry fee and the invite included three free nights in the hotel, a free breakfast buffet during registration on Saturday, and a special gift. The gift turned out to be a decorative sun-face, suitable for hanging, I guess. Mine is still in the box, but I did bring it home!

Players participated in two sessions, one on Saturday, and one on Sunday. Each session was 10 minutes and the game was 10/7 Double Bonus (DB). A full house pays 10 credits, while a flush pays 7 credits, hence the 10/7 portion of the moniker. The double bonus occurs when you hit quad 2s, 3s, and 4s, which pay 400 credits (bonus!) for a maximum five-coin bet. The big bonus is four Aces, which pays 800 credits (double bonus!) for a max bet. All other four-of-a-kinds pay 250 credits for a max bet. The downside is that two pair only returns your original wager. There were 12 machines available each round and four rounds per hour. Before my first round, I asked Linda, the Special Events Manager who served as the tournament director, how many participants she had registered. I confirmed the number of entrants when the final rankings were posted Sunday evening. The total was 191. This meant I had about a 7.8 percent chance of finishing in the green (15/191) just by entering and showing up.

The prize breakdown for this tournament was as follows: 1st Place $4,500, 2nd Place $1,250, 3rd Place $1,000, 4th Place $775, 5th Place $550, 6th Place $500, 7th Place $400, 8th Place $350, 9th Place $300, 10th Place $175, 11th Place $150, 12th Place $125, 13th Place $100, 14th Place $75, and 15th Place $50. There was an additional incentive to make both your sessions. The second day, two random video poker machine numbers were chosen each round for $50 in cash. Tournament staff went around to each player and the player picked a number from a cloth sack. There were two winners in each sack for a 2 in 12 (16.7 percent) chance of winning $50. Somehow, I failed to pick one of the lucky numbers, but I liked the odds for just showing up and playing a tourney that didn’t cost me anything.

There are two general formats in video poker tournaments: those that you play for a specified period (called 'Speed Tournaments'), and those where you play for a fixed amount of credits over a fixed period. The Four Queens tournament was a Speed Tournament. I prefer that format and felt confident it would increase my odds of finishing in the money. I generally average between 700 and 800 hands per hour in normal play. For 10 minutes, I figured I could ramp up the pace with minimal strategy errors. The extra hands I would play compared to other tournament players could make a big difference.

I had learned 10/7 DB years ago with the aide of strategy cards and computer training software. I still carry a strategy card and practice before a long weekend where I know I’ll be playing several thousand dollars in coin-in at this game. In my opinion, it is a complicated game to play at a high level and has a high degree of variance. However, with perfect play the game yields a 100.17 percent return. If you can find 10/7 DB in a casino that offers good comps, cash back, and marketing offers (rare these days), then it is worth your time to learn to play it properly. For me, the Four Queens is one of those casinos. Other casinos in the Las Vegas market require four times the coin-in to earn points, which limits my play of this game. For the record, Aliante Station in North Las Vegas fits this later category.

Breakfast and registration began Saturday morning at 8 AM. I have found most players tend to register immediately. I learned from a slot tournament experience years ago that my time was better spent in bed than waiting in a long line to register. I showed up at 9:25 AM with no one in line, the day’s baseball numbers from the sports book in hand, registered, picked up a copy of the tourney rules, and studied them over a leisurely breakfast. Round times are the same for each player both days. They were first come, first serve. By arriving later, I drew the next to last round. I like to play as late as possible so I have an idea what scores players who competed in earlier rounds have already achieved. Unfortunately, accurate information was difficult to find. I asked the tournament director if first round scores would be posted Saturday night. Linda told me that their software doesn’t allow them to tabulate first round results and only the final scores are posted when all rounds are complete. All the scores are input into a laptop computer by hand and tallied using a basic spreadsheet. I question the 'software can’t do one-day totals' answer. I am thinking an 11-year old kid could figure out a way to fix that. However, for a free tourney with good comps, I wasn’t about to rock the boat because I wanted to be invited back.

Table Of Contents

On Monday, December 28, the 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final table will play out at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. What started with 705 players is now down to the final table of nine players, each competing for a $1.5 million top prize and the chance to go heads-up against Damian Salas, the winner of the GGPoker International leg, for an additional $1 million and the coveted gold bracelet.

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One of the players who’ll return to action is 29-year-old Michael “geNet1x_” Cannon, who hails from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and will begin the final table fifth in chips with 4.4 million.

“My friends and I like to joke that I am a pro liver. I haven't actually worked a ‘real’ job ever, but I also haven't really made any money in quite a few years either (until recently),” Cannon told PokerNews. “I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by amazing supportive parents, as well as my girlfriend’s parents, who have basically allowed me to do nothing the last five years while I get my shit together.”

As it turns out, Cannon was a professional video gamer from the ages of 15-19, during which time he made a decent amount of money.

“I helped my parents out with some, saved some, and then towards the end of that time used some of that money to start playing poker,” he revealed.

Video Poker Tournaments In Vegas

When it came to video games, Cannon competed in Gears of War 1 and 2 on the Xbox 360 console. He won multiple eSport titles with his Team Infinity, most notably five Major League Gaming titles, an MLG National Championship, a World Cyber Games gold medal, and a variety of other tournaments throughout the USA and online over the course of 2006-2010.

Finding His Way to Poker

It wasn’t a long and winding road that eventually led Cannon from video games to online poker.

“Something about the similarities in the competitions drove me to be the best. I started playing poker endlessly. I had a ton of success early, and like many poker players before me, thought I was way better than I was.”

The early success saw Cannon play about his bankroll, and not surprisingly, he lost a significant chunk. Not long after, Black Friday struck. With no interest in relocating in order to play online, Cannon stayed put and lived off his savings. Over the years, those savings dwindled and he found his poker skills declined as well.

“About three years ago, I decide to make a change and say to myself, ‘I am going to give this poker thing one last more serious effort and see if I can salvage any of my lost talents.’ I started playing some live tournaments again on the East Coast at Parx and Borgata mainly.”

It was during this time Cannon met Ryan “Hagzzz021” Hagerty, who also happens to be at the 2020 WSOP Main Event final table. With online poker strong in New Jersey and expanding into his home state of Pennsylvania, Cannon soon found himself putting in volume; in fact, he booked his most profitable year in a decade in 2019, and 2020 has proved even better.

Rio Las Vegas Video Poker Tournament

VideoVegas

“I am on the border of calling myself a pro again,” admitted Cannon, who outside of gaming enjoys sports, food, and as he says “solving the sim with Scott Blumstein,” the winner of the 2017 WSOP Main Event.

Making the Main Event Final Table

For the online stages of the 2020 WSOP Main Event, Cannon made the two-hour drive from his home in south-central Pennsylvania into New Jersey. It was there he fired up his laptop and battled for two days on his way to the final table.

“It's amazing. My poker journey has had a lot of ups and downs so this is a pretty cool experience,” he said of making it to poker’s biggest stage. “The one cool thing that I am taking from all of this, is that from now on, I will always be able to say that I made a WSOP Main Event final table! That's a pretty damn cool thing to be able to say, and a dream of many fellow poker players out there. Win or lose, I am just trying to enjoy the time and not overthink things. I do plan on taking it down though.”

He continued: “I feel very confident going in. I played a lot of hands over the course of the tournament with most of the final table players and am really happy with where my reads are at. I also feel my game is at its best. I describe this as saying I am definitely not the best player by any means, but I feel like I am playing the best poker I have ever played.”

Rio Video Poker Tournament

Cannon, who has $184,584 in lifetime tournament earnings according to HendonMob, isn’t the only one excited as his friends and family have gotten behind him.

Rio Las Vegas Video Poker Tournament

“My parents have always been the best. Without their support, I would not have been able to make this one last run at poker. I always told them I would get it together someday. Everyone reaching out was amazing, I appreciate everyone's support.”

Until the final table, Cannon is quarantining at home with his girlfriend with the plan to fly out to Las Vegas the day before the final table.

*Lead image c/o Borgata/Tim Kelliher. Other photos c/o Michael Cannon.

Action will resume on Monday, December 28 as the final table players down to a winner live at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. PokerNews will once again bring you live updates until the final table is set. Be sure to join us then to see who wins the WSOP.com portion of the 2020 WSOP Main Event!

Rio Video Poker Tournament

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