Venetian has moved its Deep Stacks Extravaganza tournament series to the Palazzo and replaced one of the quarterly events with a new “Spring Big Bounty Festival.”

The casino just released the schedule for its next Deep Stack series, set to run May 24 to July 15.

There’s no DSE next month, however, meaning there will be only three this year. Instead, they will host the Spring Big Bounty Festival from April 12-22, also at Palazzo.

Since 2009, there have been four Deep Stacks a year inside the Venetian Poker Room, with events starting in January, April, May and October.

That changed in January and February, when players battled in this year’s first Deep Stack Extravaganza in the main casino area of the Palazzo.

With the Venetian being home to the largest poker room in Las Vegas, there’s no word on creating a permanent poker room inside the neighboring tower.

But the tournament shift to the Palazzo — because of already crowded Venetian poker room — appears to coincide with rumblings about expansion.

For at least a couple of years, there’s been talk about making the Venetian, currently 52 tables, even bigger. Already, a roped off area outside the main poker room handles the daily tournaments.

Now, word on The Strip is that work on Venetian’s poker room could start as early as August.

The plan supposedly calls for upwards of 90 tables, new chairs, bigger and better TVs, and tearing down the high-limit wall for better space.

Several attempts to reach casino officials about tournament and poker room changes were unsuccessful.

But it looks like Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson might start throwing some money at more than just Newt Gingrich.

Remember back in the poker-boom day when an $85,000 difference in payout seemed to mean so little? Me neither. Anyhow, we’re nearing 5 hours into heads-up, and the average stack is now about 50 big blinds. There’ve been many lead shifts, and for awhile it looked like Lee was getting delirious and about to bite it. But he just doubled up and, by his own report, is “back in the game!”

NOTE: I was gonna make a compare-and-contrast joke about heads-up blind structures with the WPT Championship going on tonight/yesterday … but apparently they had quite the heads-up battle there, too … with Yevgeniy Timoshenko requiring 79 hands to dispose of Ran Azor for the World Championship. (Seriously, is that a record for WPT heads-up battles?)

UPDATE: It’s over. Baldwin wins.

Watch the vid below to see why Pokerati is clearly no ESPN:

I still don’t know who won the WPT World Championship over at the Bellagio OK, now I do … I’m too caught up in the main event of the Venetian Deep Stacks … where it really is kinda interesting seeing seasoned pro Doug Lee (wow, remember when a WSOP Circuit event used to pay more than half a million? Me neither!) duking it out with relatively unknown tournament pro Eric Baldwin (“Basebaldy” online). They’ve been playing heads-up for nearly two four hours, with their stacks relatively even and each having more than 70 60 big blinds. Very real poker being played here … with an extra sigh of WSOP buy-in relief going to the winner. ($198k for 1st, $115k for second.)

Such a big game going on in the back corner of the Venetian poker room, and yet so few people seem to have a clue about the action taking place. (Floor staff gave up on calling the hand-for-hand action a couple hours ago.) Meanwhile, the nightly $120 (where Pokerati fave Adam Schacter is still alive with 6 remaining) has more railbirds.

A few interesting tidbits about the Deep Stacks main event:

— The underdog, Baldwin, has a bigger crowd watching, with 4 to 5 viewers, compared to Lee’s 0 to 1.

— Michael Skomac, the winner of February’s Venetian Deep Stacks main event, finished 4th.

— “Known” pros in the money today included Sam Grizzle (23rd) and Michael Mizrachi (16th).

— The (plenty drinky) crew sweating Baldwin includes Cody Slaubaugh (on a tear of late), Adam Geyer from Austin, Justin Young (who finished 8th in the WPT World Championship this weekend), and Shannon Shorr (who finished 5th in the WPT Championship today). Needless to say, these guys are all having a good weekend and month … with nearly $1 million in winnings amongst them … probably more if you include their online tournament results.

It’s always fun running into people unexpectedly … happens regularly here in Vegas and today I noticed Lodge player Jerry Dolan (left) playing in the nightly $120 tourney at the Venetian … and when I went to snap a picture, lo and behold the player seated to his left was Adam Schacter (right), another occasional Lodge player and a final tableist in the 2005 Pokerati Invitational. They didn’t know each other … but would get to know each other in the end, as Schacter busted Dolan in this 129-player event.

Too funny! Small (poker) world. And good luck to Adam, as he’s currently chip leader with 19 players remaining.

Pro Poker, Too

So lots of big action going on in Vegas tonight. We’ve got the WPT World Championship final table at Bellagio (word around here is that somebody won — about $2 million), the Venetian Deep Stacks main event is down to heads-up (Doug Lee vs Vegas local Eric Baldwin — for about $200k), and over on the kiddie tables outside the Venetian poker room we’ve got a Lodge/Pokerati alum fighting to see if he’s got what it takes to take one the whole way (for about $2k). Good night in V-town.

Jon in Las Vegas sends along an iPhone pic from the Venetian poker room — voted Best in Vegas by you, the Pokerati readers, in 2008 — where big deep stacks action is getting underway:

Will they be able to hold on for 2009?

Las Vegas, NV: The next Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza for 2009 will run Wednesday, April 1st thru Saturday, April 25th.

The Venetian’s 2009 DSE II schedule of events:

Wednesday, April 1 – Super Satellites
$275 buy-in, No-Limit Hold’em, 4,000 starting chips.

Thursday, April 2 at 12 Noon
$330 buy-in, No-Limit Hold’em, 10,000 starting chips, 2,000 additional chips for optional $10 Staff Bonus (12,000 starting chips total) 40 minute rounds.

Friday, April 3 at 12 Noon
$330 buy-in, No-Limit Hold’em, 10,000 starting chips, 2,000 additional chips for optional $10 Staff Bonus (12,000 starting chips total) 40 minute rounds.

Saturday, April 4 at 12 Noon
$550 buy-in, No-Limit Hold’em, 12,500 starting chips, 2,500 additional chips for optional $10 Staff Bonus (15,000 starting chips total) 40 minute rounds.

Sunday, April 5 at 12 Noon
$1,070 buy-in, No-Limit Hold’em, 12,500 starting chips, 2,500 additional chips for optional $10 Staff Bonus (15,000 starting chips total) 60 minute rounds.

More…

This just in over the transom … from our wifi providers at the Venetian … and sure enough, this scheduled skill-based series will be competing directly with the WSOP:

We are pleased to announce The Venetian Poker Room’s Deep Stack Extravaganza III schedule is now available. I have attached it to this email for your convenience however for future reference it can be found online at http://venetian.com/Pages.aspx?id=2451. In addition to the DSE III schedule, you’ll also notice that our April DSE II schedule is available as well as the winners from our DSE I tournament held in February 2009. A couple things of note for our DSE III:

Dates of Tournament: June1 to July 15
Starting Chip Counts:

• $225 NLH Shootout: 1,500, no additional chips available
• $330 NLH and $550 PLO: 10,000, 2,000 additional with optional $10 staff bonus
• $550 NLH and $1,070 NLH: 12,500, 2,500 additional with optional $10 staff bonus
• $550 Omaha 8/B and  $550 H.O.R.S.E: 8,000, 2,000 additional with optional $10 staff bonus
• $1,590 and $2,000 NLH: 15,000, 5,000 additional with optional $10 staff bonus
• $5,000  NLH Main Event: 20,000, 5,000 additional with optional $10 staff bonus
• Super Satellite: $4,000, no additional chips available

Table Count: The Venetian Poker Room will be expanding to 89 tables to accommodate our rapidly growing player base
Registration: Begins at 9 p.m. the day prior to of each event
Event Start Times: No-Limit Tournaments begin at 12 p.m. The Omaha 8/B, H.O.R.S.E. and the PLO Tournaments start at 4PM. See poker room tournament staff for super satellite start times.
Best Overall Points Winners: 1/2 of one percent will be withheld from all Deep Stack III tournament prize pools for Best Overall Points Winners. 10 players will be awarded Best Overall Player prizes. All awards will be paid in casino chips.

Everyone’s hustlin’ gigs these days … and beyond status updates to my Facebook page, I’ve found two welcome homes for some non-Pokerati writing — at Bluff, and most recently What’s On … where I let the not-so-poker-geeky Vegas tourists know about happenings of interest from the LV poker scene, such as:

The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza (which I think ended yesterday or today!) and, coming up, Dream Team Poker.

In Las Vegas, there are lots of opportunities to replenish, even in these difficult economic times:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/media/video/sex_business.html

While this is kinda amazing just because it’s in a mainstream paper … 10 minutes of work to earn a standard 2/5 NL buy-in? I gotta think Tbonezzz will be considering it if he doesn’t cash in today’s Venetian Deep Stacks event, which he qualified for via satellite.

Highish-stakes pro David Plastik, looking to take down a $330 deep-stack tournament at the Venetian.

The 1st of four Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganzae got underway this week … and sure enough, the chance to play a skill-heavy event (deeper stacks, longer level times) for a low buy-in seems extra appealing (at least value-wise) in the current economic client.

I don’t have too many specifics, but I can say the fields seem to be bigger than last time, or at least are staying in the same ballpark. They definitely haven’t shrunk, relative to the world economy, that’s for sure. At this moment, the Venetian poker room and 30-something extra tables set up on the main casino floor aren’t packed, but they are full. Some familiar faces (on very quick glance) about five levels into today’s $550 NLH include Gobboboy Jimmy Fricke and PokerNews expat John Caldwell.

In a few minutes About an hour ago, the final table from yesterday’s $330 got underway. Bryan Micon from Neverwin was there, along with David Plastik, a couple other solid players, and a couple donks (according to Micon, who has since busted). First place: $28k.

To give you another example of the field sizes the Venetian’s 2009 DSE-1 is drawing, Event #1, on Monday, another $330, saw 447 players and a $129k total prize pool. 36 got paid …

1st – $40,117
2nd – $21,029
3rd – $10,353

Some other familiar faces who have been hanging at the Venetian this week: JJ Liu (she hasn’t missed a day), Kenna James, Susie Isaacs, Daniel Alspach, Adam Schoenfeld, and Lacey Jones. Some bloggers seem to be filtering through here, too … just ran into BWOP, and I hear Grubette is on her way.

UPDATE: Also in the $550 hizzouse — Haley Hintze and Mike Laing. Maybe this sorta turnout is nothing new, but it seems to me these events are being taken much more seriously than previous Deep Stacks.