Bar Poker Open $200K Championship Underway at Golden Nugget
Bar poker leagues are a popular way for casual players and poker fans across the country to learn the game in a fun, low-pressure environment with plenty of upside. The Bar Poker Open currently being held at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas is hosting the biggest live event there is for bar poker participants with their signature $200,000 guarantee.
While the $200K Invitational National Championship taking place from June 10-14 is for qualifiers only, the affordably-priced tournaments on the Grand Poker Series schedule also going on now are open to all. With more than 1,000 qualifiers in town for the Bar Poker Open tournament and festivities, there should be no shortage of action in the side events.
Leading the charge of the Bar Poker Open event are Glenn McCrory, founder and owner of New England’s Eastern Poker Tour, along with Gorilla Gaming and Pennsylvania-based Riverchasers Poker Tour owner, Andrew Griffith. Joining the fun are more than 40 bar poker leagues that have opted into participating in the Bar Poker Open, which offers players in their respective leagues more value and opportunities to play for big money in Vegas.
The final table action, estimated to begin at 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, will be live streamed on a 30-minute delay via Gorilla Gaming on Twitch, Facebook and the Bar Poker Open YouTube channel with commentary from Ebony Kenney, Ryan Chua, Evan Myers and guests.
Qualifying for the $200K Guarantee
While it’s too late to qualify for this year’s Invitational, players are encouraged to get involved with local participating bar poker leagues for a chance to get into next year’s BPO event. To get a seat, players need to finish in the top three spots in any nightly tournament, and play in a free weekly online event hosted on Bar Poker Open’s poker software.
From there, the top four percent of the field, or four players for every 100, earn a spot in the $200K season-ending Championship. With usually between 700 and 800 players participating each week, at least 28 players qualify every week.
As an added bonus, the top finisher each week wins a full Vegas package including six hotel nights, $400 in travel and their seat into the tournament, a prize that more than 120 players came to this year’s BPO armed with.
“When league owners use Bar Poker Open properly as a tool to market and promote their events, our leagues have seen exponential growth.”
Now in their fourth year of operation, the Bar Poker Open has seen significant growth, while also contributing to growth of local bar leagues around the country.
“When league owners use Bar Poker Open properly as a tool to market and promote their events, our leagues have seen exponential growth,” said McCrory. “We have some leagues that have gone from three events a week, to over 50 games a week by embracing our championship and working hard on their bar poker business.”
As for the BPO Championship event, the numbers have jumped from 365 in 2016 to 565 in 2017, and this year, they had 885 unique players RSVP before the event got started. This growth reflects the vast increase in bar poker league participants involved with the BPO, which has gone from 180,000 players annually to over 1,000,000.
As Sissy Murphy from Nevada Poker League put it during a 2017 video interview, “If you run a bar poker league, and do not work with Bar Poker Open, what are you doing with your life? Bar Poker Open has literally tripled my attendance.”
For the remaining schedule of events in the Grand Poker Series at Golden Nugget, check out this PokerNews article. For more information on the Bar Poker Open, head over to their website.
Lead image courtesy of www.freeimages.com/Christina Vargason
