Festivities at the PokerStars North American Poker Tour’s (NAPT) Los Angeles stop may have already begun, but that doesn’t mean that the schedule is set in stone. Tournament organizers announced this week that a new event – a $5,250 Bounty Shootout (BSO) – has been added to the docket and will be inserted into the lineup next week.
While the rest of the NAPT Los Angeles is being held at the famous Bicycle Casino, the $5,250 BSO will take place at the Crystal Casino, just a short drive south from “The Bike.” It will also be televised on ESPN2 in December. The first day will be split into two flights on Tuesday, November 16th, the first at 11:00am and the second at 6:00pm. The final table players will reconvene on Thursday, November 18th at 2:00pm to battle it out for the title.
For those unfamiliar with Shootout tournaments, they are essentially a series of single-table tournaments. At first, play looks like any other multi-table tournament, but as players are eliminated, the tables are not rebalanced. Instead, each table plays down to a single winner. Once every table has its champ, those winners combine to form new tables and they once again play down to one survivor. This continues for as many rounds as necessary until just one player remains in the entire event. In the case of the $5,250 BSO, there will only be one round before the final table, as the event has a maximum capacity of 81 players. Thus, play will begin with nine tables of nine, with the nine winners meeting at Thursday’s final table.
And, of course, since it is a Bounty tournament, each time a player eliminates an opponent, he receives a cash prize.
Wednesday, November 10th marks the first day at the NAPT Los Angeles during which a non-satellite tournament – the $645 No Limit Hold’em Bounty event – will be contested. The $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event begins on Friday, November 12th with Day 1A. Day 1B will be held on Saturday and the remaining field will combine on Sunday for Day 2. The final table of the Main Event is scheduled for Wednesday, November 17th at 1:00pm.
All told, there are 20 non-satellite events at the NAPT Los Angeles stop through Sunday, November 21st, including Omaha, Heads-Up, and Mixed Game tournaments. There will also be a Ladies International Poker Series (LIPS) event and other bounty tournaments. Additionally, on the final day of the NAPT Los Angeles, there will be a super satellite to the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) at the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas. The PCA will begin on January 4th, 2011 and will feature more than 50 events over 10 days.
After Los Angeles, there are no more stops currently on the schedule for the NAPT. Unless an event is added in December, it appears that the new season will start with the PCA in January.
The NAPT was launched by PokerStars in January with its inaugural stop at the PCA. 1,529 players turned out for the $10,300 Main Event, the majority of whom (974) were PokerStars qualifiers. Harrison Gimbel put his name in the record books as the first NAPT Main Event winner ever, taking home $2.2 million. In February, 872 players turned out for the $5,000 Main Event at NAPT Venetian, with Tom Marchese winning the $827,648 first prize. The latest NAPT Main Event winner was Vanessa Selbst, who won the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event and $750,000.
