[toc]The poker action is wrapping up at the L.A. Poker Classic at Commerce Casino, but the tournament festivities are moving just down the road to the Bicycle Casino for the latest installment of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit.
Action begins with $300K guaranteed Monster Stack
The opening ring event for the series is a $365 buy-in no-limit hold’em event with four starting flights and a $300,000 guarantee. There will be 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. flights on both Saturday, March 4 and Sunday, March 5.
The $1,675 buy-in main event has no posted guarantee. It will get underway the following weekend, with starting flights on Saturday, March 11 and Sunday, March 12.
Participants are allowed to re-enter once per flight for up to four entries total.
Other notable tournaments on the 12-ring-event schedule worth mentioning include a $3,250 buy-in High Roller tournament with unlimited re-entry on Monday, March 13 and a $1,025 buy-in two-day bounty event getting underway on Tuesday, March 14.
The property is running extensive satellites to the main event.
The tournament field size will also be padded by winners from Nevada online poker satellite winners who earned a seat on WSOP.com, the regulated online poker site in Nevada.
Tournament series latest in busy schedule for CA poker
The WSOP Circuit at the Bicycle Casino is not the only major tournament running in the Golden State.
The World Poker Tour (WPT) will be running its annual $7,500 buy-in Shooting Star event at Bay 101 Casino in San Jose, California. After that, the WPT will finish up its California Swing with a $3,500 buy-in event at Thunder Valley Casino near Sacramento.
The event is also hot on the heels of the aforementioned L.A. Poker Classic at Commerce. The monthlong series saw solid attendance numbers and drew a main event crowd of 521 players compared to 516 last year.
It managed to do so despite direct competition from the WSPO Circuit event running a few hours away at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Last year’s Bike Circuit one of the highlights of the WSOP season
The WSOP Circuit has a reputation for being the cream of the crop for “minor league” poker players, but last year’s March Circuit main event final table was stacked.
The heads-up action felt made for TV as all-time WSOP money earner Antonio Esfandiari defeated 2006 WSOP Main Event champion Jamie Gold to win the ring and over $225,000.
The casino’s in-house poker streaming show Live At the Bike streamed the entirety of the final table. The cash-game show has been airing nightly the past few weeks with several big name players in town for the LA Poker Classic being featured.
The Bicycle Casino is now the only WSOP Circuit stop in California. The tour used to make an annual trip to Harrah’s Rincon outside San Diego.
Now the Circuit makes two stops at the Bike each year. The tour was previously at the Bike in December of 2016.