WASHINGTON NO-LIMIT HOLD'EM POKER TOURNAMENTS

The Muckleshoot Casino is in Auburn, Washington (halfway between Seattle and Tacoma). They hold no-limit hold’em tournaments in their poker room Monday through Thursday evenings at 7:15 pm. Expect 60 to 100 players.

The Monday and Thursday events are designed for amateurs, with extremely fast blind structures. Both are Skill Level 1 tourneys, not recommended for skillful players.

The Tuesday and Wednesday tournaments are a bit better, as players start with more chips, but still, these are only Skill Level 2 tournaments. The Wednesday tournament has an unusual add-on format. Players start with $1500 in chips for their $50 buy-in and are allowed one add-on for $40. They may take the add-on either at the start of the tournament, in which case they get $2,000 in chips, or at the end of the first hour, in which case they will get only $1,000 in chips. Obviously, the best strategy is to take the add-on off the top and get double the chip addition for the same price.

What is most unusual about the Muckleshoot tourneys, however, is that their most expensive poker tournaments have the worst (lightening fast) blind structures (because the players start with so few chips). Their less costly tournaments are actually better formats for skillful poker tournament players (though even these are poor by Las Vegas or online poker room standards).

The Quinault Beach Resort & Casino has a no-limit hold'em tournament every day but Monday. All events are poorly structured, way too fast for any skillful play (Skill Level 0). The only exception is the tournament offered on the last Sunday of each month—a $115 tournament with 20-minute blind levels—but even this event has only a Skill Level of 1. Personally, I wouldn't play any of these.

Washington state recently passed legislation making it a felony for their residents to play poker online. Apparently, it was the hypocritical Washington casinos that sponsored this legislation. I doubt the new law will keep many of Washington’s online poker players out of the online poker rooms, partly because the Washington poker tournaments are so inferior to the offerings available online. (And players tell me that these low Skill Level Muckleshoot tournaments are actually among the best available in the state.) If the Washington poker rooms want to get their players out of the online poker rooms and into their casino poker rooms, passing unenforceable laws is not the way to do it.

Las Vegas poker rooms now offer regularly-scheduled tournaments at all Skill Levels from 1 to 6. You can find tournaments at Skill Levels 3, 4, 5 and 6 virtually every day of the week at various casinos, including Bellagio, Binion’s, Caesars, Hilton, Mirage, Orleans, Venetian, and Wynn. Many of these are priced under $200. Yet, no poker room in Washington state can give their players a better tournament than a Skill Level 2. And they think they’re going to pass stupid laws to get their players out of the great tournaments available in the online poker rooms?

If Muckleshoot put 30-minute blind levels on their $3,000 tournament, they’d have an excellent Skill Level 4 tourney that would start attracting serious players. If they scheduled this tournament on Friday night, and put a $200 buy-in on it, they’d probably have to expand their poker room by about 20 tables to handle the crowds. With their current poor formats, they’ll never attract the serious players away from the higher-skill events they can find online.

[Note: for brief explanations of “patience factors” and “Skill Levels,” see Arnold Snyder’s articles on this site. For comprehensive information on how these are computed, as well as information on how Snyder estimates bankroll requirements for skilled tournament players, see his book, The Poker Tournament Formula.]