The WSOP crowned its newest champion this week, but that doesn’t mean tournaments around town are done for the year.

Heartland Poker Tour makes its next stop at Palms. The tournaments run today (Friday, Nov. 2) through Nov. 11, culminating with a $1,650 main event.

This is probably a good series of events for those who want to try their hand tourneys, or players like me who don’t want to spend a bunch on donkaments. It’s essentially a group of at least 7 satellites every day leading up to the big one.

There are single-table sit-n-go qualifier tournaments that start as low as $60 and a $120 “nightly turbo,” all the way up to a $375 “last chance qualifier.”

With former 2004 WSOP champ Greg Raymer winning 3 HPTs already this year, it should be interesting to see how many other well-known pros turn out to give the series a shot. We know from Gavin Smith’s twitter that he’s a lock: “It seems like every day I get one day closer to @HPTPoker at the palms, it is kinda like Christmas only this Santa is real!”

Ante Up Magazine’s new poker tour starts later this month at Thunder Valley Casino Resort near Sacramento, where the main event comes with a $200,000 guarantee. They’re also hosting events in Minnesota and Oklahoma leading up to a world championship at Hard Rock Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Man, tournament players might have a higher variance grind, but at least it can be exotic.

Ante Up also announced its next Vegas event would be held at Red Rock Casino from Jan. 21-27. The event schedule has yet to be released, but the series will culminate with a $1,100 main event with three Day 1s, which will “spill over into the Rocks Lounge,” according to the magazine. Sounds like they might have more than a few splashed pots.

My best shot at a bracelet just passed me by.

Jokers Wild Casino closed its poker room! The home of the practically secret monthly bracelet tournament in Henderson played its last hand on Halloween night.

They didn’t give a reason for the shutting down, but cash games there were often hit or miss, and staff members told me that some of their regulars had been rounded up by nearby Club Fortune Casino.

And it wasn’t the only locals poker room on the outskirts of Las Vegas to close this week.

The former Aliante Station, now Aliante Casino and Hotel, also shuttered its poker room after being taken over from Aliante Gaming LLC. The North Las Vegas casino was sold as part of Sations Casino bankruptcy and reopened under the new name Thursday.

I never played in their poker room, but if they ever decide to re-open — a la Silverton — I might have to check it out.

Jokers Wild Casino gives away a bracelet every month. Dave wants one to convince friends and family he has a clue what he’s doing out here in the Nevada desert.

Out in Henderson, deep in the southeast edge of the Vegas Valley, there’s a competition between a pair of lesser known casinos for small-stakes cash-game action and low buy-in tournaments.

As Aria, Venetian and other monsters of the Strip try to lure in the most tourists, Jokers Wild Casino and Club Fortune Casino clamor day after day for all the poker-loving retirees and locals on the outskirts of town.

“We’re friends, but there’s a little bit of a rivalry,” Jokers Wild poker room supervisor David Miller (@silentraise) said of his competitor, Club Fortune.

The two casinos sit about 4 miles apart, some 20 miles from Las Vegas Boulevard: Jokers Wild just east of the Outpost Motel on Boulder Highway, and Club Fortune across the street from a Kmart on Racetrack Road.

Both are 4-table rooms that offer $2/$4FL and .50/$1NL games to a crowd of mostly locals from Henderson and nearby Boulder City (which happens to be one of only two cities in Nevada that prohibits gambling). Both rooms spread $30 buy-in tournaments every day — Jokers Wild at 11:30 a.m., Club Fortune at 2 p.m. Both have recently fiddled with these starting times in an effort to bring more action.

More…