Four Poker Alternatives to the WSOP in Vegas This Summer

The 2014 World Series of Poker is just a month away and players from around the world are finalizing their schedule plans, but the WSOP isn’t the only poker tournament series in Vegas during the summer.

The following are four alternative tournaments series that run concurrent with the 2014 WSOP.

Orleans Open

The Orleans Open is one of the oldest non-WSOP tournament events in Las Vegas. Running from May 24th through June 2nd, this series offers events from $225 to $330.

This year’s series offers four NL tournaments, a NL Bounty event, two Omaha Hi-Lo events, one PLO event and a R.O.S.E. event. The Main Event will hit you up for just $540 and typically draws a decent field.

All events run just two days and are nice tune-ups for the early events of the WSOP. The fields will be a mix of Vegas regulars, local pros and early arrivals for the WSOP.

2014 Grand Poker Series at Golden Nugget

The Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget in downtown Vegas is a great series of small buy-in tournaments that many amateur and pro players frequent due to the excellent spread of tournaments.

Events begin on June 4th and run through July 2nd with most buy-ins ranging from $125 to $230. In addition to NL Hold’em events, this series spreads PL Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven Card Stud, Stud 8 or Better, H.O.R.S.E., Eight-Game, Triple Stud and even Open Face Chinese.

This series offers a great way to gear-up for mixed tournaments at the WSOP and you never know which pros will show up in these events.

Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza

The Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza is easily the most popular event of the summer outside of the World Series of Poker. This series runs from May 22nd through July 15th and has buy-ins suitable for all bankroll levels.

The main downside of this series over others is that there are limited non-Hold’em events, but the NL fields are among the largest outside of the Rio.

At least 15 of these events have guarantees starting at $75,000. This year’s Main Event on July 12th boasts a guaranteed prize pool of $1 million. At least 15 of these events have guarantees.

This is a great series as it has a solid mix of amateur and pro players in the fields. Those that are primarily NL players tend to use this as a bankroll builder during the summer.

PHamous Poker Series

Planet Hollywood started its PHamous Poker Series events in 2013 and the series presents a great low-limit buy-in series for those with a limited bankroll.

This summer’s PHamous Poker Series V will run from June 6th through July 7th and the last series featured buy-ins from $10 to $160. The $300 Main Event featured a $75,000 guarantee with $30,000 guaranteed for first place.

The venue has yet to release its summer series schedule but look for it to try and capitalize on the volume of amateur players that will be at the nearby Rio.

This series will likely be amateur heavy with very few pros other than maybe the Main Event, so this will be a great tune-up series or bankroll builder.

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