Summer poker tournaments in Las Vegas generate nearly a quarter-billion dollars worth of prize money, Pokerati data crunchers have found. (Thanks Thea in the Philippines!)

It really is about more than just the World Series. Sure the tournament brand proudly owned by Caesars Interactive may have started it all, but now you’ve got Venetian Deep Stacks, the Wynn Classic, Binion’s Classic, Aria Classic, Rio Deep Stacks, Caesars Megastacks, Bellagio Cup … the list goes on … but all are competing for players, and apparently all you need is a casino property and a poker cliche … and maybe 110-degree weather outside, and voila — tournament success awaits!

LOLs notwithstanding, to better understand the impact of live events on the poker economy, and to assess the scope of WSOP and non-WSOP summertime Vegas action, we looked at 13 different series(es?) held at 10 different casino properties from mid-May through mid July … accounting for 722 tournaments total, nearly 230,000 entries (not to be confused with number of players) … making for more than 1,000 tournament days (whoa, that’s a lotta staff somebody’s gotta manage) in just one city.

And upon looking a little deeper (scroll horizontally) we found how:

• Caesars clearly dominates across low, middle, and high stakes tournament levels — with the 312 tournaments they operate accounting for 43 percent of the action we looked at, but 88 percent of the available prize pools
• Bellagio tourneys may be in a different league of high-dollar play, but even with WPT-branded events, total prize pools under MGM Resorts’ umbrella tally a relatively paltry $10 million
• Venetian held 212 tournaments, with some 32,000 entries generating about $14 million in prize money (after raking about 14 percent)
• With an average buy-in of $185, Rio Deepstacks accounted for 70,000 tournament entries, and $12 million in prize money
• The Hollywood Poker Open was notable, but probably also an outlier; still, might this one-off just before the WSOP main event reveal a possible a soft spot in the tournament economy at the $2,500 level in late June?

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Just what poker needs … another podcast! Yep, I know … but this one is different, it’s special … Vegas Grinders we’re calling it — featuring yours truly @Pokerati with @AndrewNeeme and @RandomPoker …just a few dudes grinding out a life in poker, telling you what’s going on at the local tables.

This week we talk about Michael Phelps’ residence in Vegas and his play at Aria and the Palms; and we compare and contrast the WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Palace and the Venetian Deep Stacks, both of which were playing at the same time in February. Andrew, as it turns out, may or may not be on tilt after bubbling the $365 WSOP-Caesars PLO. We also take a look at the recently released 2013 WSOP schedule, and question the hairiness factor in the new variable buy-in “ladies” event. All that, plus the Millionaire Maker and LOL the tag-team charity tourney this weekend at Binion’s. We wanna know, will Dave ever get there on his heart draw?

Have a listen to episode 1. And if you don’t like it, well, you know … you really probably should!

Ah, the Las Vegas fall. It’s that time of year when the high temperatures finally drop into the 90s, pool season ends, barbecues begin and we enjoy a brief respite from the melting cars.

But the live poker scene around Las Vegas is starting to heat up again, after the summer break from the WSOP. Three of the big four rooms — Venetian, Bellagio, Caesars — are hosting fall tournaments. And the WSOP Main Event final table returns to the Rio later this month.

Even Howard Lederer made a ballyhooed return to high stakes cash games at Aria and Bellagio this week. He played in Bobby’s Room on Monday, the Ivey Room on Tuesday, and found his way back to Bellagio on Wednesday with a nosebleed crew that included Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, Chau Giang, and Nick Schulman. Lederer’s given no indication where he’s headed next, but I imagine he’s a little more than a DOJ seizure away from the .50/$1 game at Bill’s.

I wanted to snap a picture of Lederer when I saw him at Aria, but security threatened to ban anyone who did, and Dan’s not paying me enough to risk arrest or deportation, so … this twitpic posted to 2+2 will have to be good enough.

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Let’s hope it’s an omen. I picked up pocket Aces on my first hand in the new-and-improved Venetian poker room. My good friend and fellow Pokeratier Andrew raised into me, then called my three-bet “just in case” before check-folding the flop.

$10 Million Rebuy: The Venetian poker room has expanded to add 50 percent more tables and hopefully 50 percent more donkey tourists.

The new digs reopened at 5 am Wednesday; I arrived around 4:30 pm, or what Vegas grinders call morning. I wanted to see what a month-long renovation and supposedly $10 million could do for a major poker room. And I can tell you, this is now the fanciest poker joint in Vegas — if only for the giant, shimmering chandeliers hanging under a Renaissance ceiling mural at the front of the room.

Here’s some of what I couldn’t help but notice upon re-entering this previously familiar poker space:

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The long-awaited redesign of the Venetian Poker Room is in full gear, creating a major, albeit temporary, shift in big-room action on the Vegas Strip.

In a couple weeks, the renovated room will have 59 tables with bigger and better TVs — mounted on the walls and in pillars — and cushier chairs. The newly remodeled room is slated to open Sept. 1, according to the Venetian’s facebook page.

The old 52-table room quickly grew favor among regulars and tourists alike after it opened in 2006, particularly for its Deep Stack Extravaganza tournament series. But the Venetian’s prestige as the Best Poker Room in Vegas slipped with some poker enthusiasts as Aria opened 3 years later.

The renovated room supposedly will extend across floor space previously used for overflow tournaments and slots, abutting the new Cantor Gaming Sportsbook and Noodle Asia.

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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.

In the midst of a so-far unprofitable weeklong stretch of daily tournaments around Las Vegas, I decided to try my luck+skill next at the Orleans (a grizzled locals favorite), the Golden Nugget (for a tourist-packed short-stack event), and the Venetian for a little Deep Stacks Extravaganza with hoodie-and-headphones set. Each tournament has its own appeal, and gave me quite a taste of the broad range of game selection across town.

Friday night’s 12,500-chip starting stack at The Orleans.

Ragin’ Cajun: Friday Nights at the Orleans

Those on the lower-stakes Vegas grind often rave about Friday night at The Orleans. Large field, good structure, big prize pool. A friend advised that I arrive early because the event fills up so quickly. I parked around back almost an hour before the 7pm start time, and after securing my $125 entry, sat at a bar near the food court with T.G.I. Fridays, Fuddruckers, Baskin Robbins, Sbarro, Subway — yeah, real Cajun cuisine.

On this night there would be 270 players, with first place paying about $8,000. The floor supervisor said re-entries were possible but improbable because of a long list of alternates. As we got underway, two locals spoke conspicuously about a mutual friend who was playing a $250k buy-in event in Australia (the Aussie Millions high-roller event, won by Phil Ivey).

Of The Orleans’s comparably tiny entry fee, $100 goes to the prize pool, $2 goes to tournament “players of the month,” $13 goes to the house and $10 goes to staff. The tournament can often last until mid morning, but my run in the event would be a quick one, as I never dragged a pot and busted 5 minutes before the first break.

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Talk of PLO on Poker After Dark comes as I personally have been jonesin’ for mo-bigger low-stakes PLO … and based on emails, tweets, and Facebook, a stream of Vegas visitors and locals seem to be, too. Interest in PLO may be growing, but players in Las Vegas looking for starter stakes can’t always be sure where to find reliable action.

Word from the Strip is that a rather strong 1/2 PLO game has been running lately at the Venetian, apparently fueled by the November Deep Stacks. But one-bullet buyers beware, a $5 bring-in at the V makes the game kinda steep … especially for those with a strategy of pushing with weak two-pairs, calling with non-nut draws, and relying on run-it-twice to stick around long enough for a meal comp. (Don’t ask me how I know.)

And Aria Poker spreads a vibrant 1/2 NLH/PLO that occasionally makes. Their game plays most similarly to the Pokerati Game of old — and though it runs only sporadically, Aria often has the game posted on the board with a list of mostly 1/3 and 2/5 no-limit regulars ready to take a seat against any and all PLO tourists.

We all know there’s lots of chit-chat on blind structures, always, and there should be. They are important. In the early days of the poker boom, a lot of tourney directors didn’t really know what they were doing and surely didn’t understand the nuances of stack sizes deep into tournaments with bigger-than-expected fields. Then the Venetian came along with their Deep Stack concept, kinda-sorta revolutionizing the way smaller-stakes tournaments were played … at which point everyone started copying it and multiplying … and eventually trying to apply a bajillion starting chips concept to higher buy-in, big-time poker.

That’s when TDA honcho Matt Savage stepped up to say, wait a minute, let’s take a look beyond the first few levels, maybe these perceived Deep Stacks in a lot of instances aren’t all everyone says they’re supposed to be. Just about any educated “outsider” I’ve talked to who has taken a close look at the prevalent blind structures of the day contend that, indeed, while the non-bastardized Venetian Deep Stacks set-up is good, Savage’s not-so-deep-stacks structure as seen at the LAPC are indeed some of the best in the business — a model for other tourney directors to emulate.

After Day 1 of the WPT-Commerce main event, Daniel Negreanu agrees. Read more as he explains a bit why.

NOTE: I learned a good rule of thumb about antes from Negreanu, and where they fit in to breed action in “slower” events.

The North American Poker Tour at the Venetian is coming to its inevitable conclusion with the $5,000 main event final table, scheduled to start at 2pm PT today, with live streaming available at www.napt.com/tv. Here’s how the final table of 8 will look when play resumes:

Seat 1: Daniel Clemente (1,345,000)
Seat 2: Sam Stein (6,145,000)
Seat 3: Thomas Fuller (4,735,000)
Seat 4: “Miami” John Cernuto (1,300,000)
Seat 5: Yunus Jamal (3,940,000)
Seat 6: David Paredes (4,700,000)
Seat 7: Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese (2,370,000)
Seat 8: Eric Blair (1,690,000)

On Thursday, the final table of the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Invitational Shootout will play out, also scheduled to start at 2pm PT. Here’s the final table, with the number of $5,000 bounties each collected:

Scott Seiver (6)
Hoyt Corkins (4)
Faraz Jaka (4)
Joe Cassidy (4)
Brett Richey (3)
Peter Eastgate (2)
Ashton Griffin (2)

Each player earned $75,000 for winning their table, with the last man standing on Thursday pocketing $455,000 in the winner-take-all format. All seven players are also eligible to win an additional $100,000 from PokerStars.net for having the most bounties.

For those looking to follow the action, check out www.pokerstarsblog.com w/ ShortStack Shamus, Jennifer Newell and Otis, or the live reporting over at PokerNews.

The field in the $5,000 buy-in NAPT Main Event at the Venetian is down to their final 24 players, with a few recognizable names remaining as they play down to the final table of 8 today. Today is also the first day of the $25,000 buy-in Invitational Bounty Shootout. 7 tables, each seating 7 players, will play down to a winner. If you knock out a player at your table, you pick up a $5,000 bounty, with PokerStars.net giving the player collecting the most bounties an additional $100,000. The winner of each table is guaranteed $50,000 $75,000, with the 7 winners returning on Thursday. The winner takes home the remaining prize pool – $630,000 $455,000.

Even better is that you can watch the action live over the next three days on PokerStars.tv starting at 11am PT. To see who’s left in the 5k and the table lineups for the shootout, head to page 2:

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For those Pokerati readers who missed out on what’s going on, here’s some stuff that’s happened over the past few days:

The first PokerStars.net NAPT event in the US got off to a roaring start on Saturday, with 872 players putting up $5,000 at the Venetian as part of their Deep Stack Extravaganza. 149 players started day 3 a few minutes ago, with 128 making the money. Hand for hand play has just begun, and the tournament staff is hoping to play down to 24. You can follow the action over at PokerNews, PokerStarsblog.com, or PokerListings. The winner when play ends on Thursday will collect $827,648.

Reality show star Trishelle Canatella made the final table of the WPT Celebrity Invitational, part of the LA Poker Classic currently running at the Commerce Casino. The final table will resume on March 3rd with this lineup:

Seat 1: Steve Elliott – 1,520,000
Seat 2: Thor Hansen – 1,480,000
Seat 3: Trishelle Cannatella – 1,540,000
Seat 4: Sean Urban – 2,090,000
Seat 5: Neev Baram – 1,900,000
Seat 6: LeRon Washington – 1,790,000

In other LAPC news, Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri took down his 3rd preliminary event of this year’s LAPC, winning the $2,100 Ironman event, a tournament with no scheduled breaks. Barbieri pocketed almost $60,000 for the win, plus a seat to the $10,000 Main Event, which starts February 26th.

The NBC National Heads-Up Championship is just a few days away, with the draw party on March 4th at Pure at Caesars’ Palace, followed by the tournament from March 5-7. The full list of 64 participants hasn’t been announced yet, but over 20 players already received their invite through a series of criteria, including last year’s winner, Huck Seed. Other automatic invites include: Phil Ivey, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Darvin Moon, Jason Mercier, Eric Baldwin, Sammy Farha, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Barry Shulman. One invitee who had to decline: Jeff Lisandro, who has a prior commitment in Australia which prevents him from attending.

The EPT Copenhagen event, which drew 423 entries, concluded Sunday evening with Sweden’s Anton Wigg outlasting Italy’s Francesco de Vivo in a four-hour heads-up duel to win 3,675,000 Danish kroner ($6782,918). Other notables who cashed: Roberto Romanello, Peter Eastgate, Juha Helppi, and Bertrand Grospellier.

Boycotting may be too strong a word … “avoiding” could work, as could “snubbing”, as could “pissing off its own players by telling them they can’t go.”

Supposedly, highly reliable sources are saying, Full Tilt brass in Ireland are telling Full Tilt-branded American (and non-American) pros that they are not allowed to play in the Venetian Deep Stacks main event … as it is part of the newly launched NAPT, presented by PokerStars.net. What, are you guys not buying their claim that Stars-dot-net is different than Stars-dot-com? Interesting …

We hinted that something was coming on The Poker Beat a couple weeks ago. Kudos to ESPN’s @GaryWise1 for digging up the confirmation on the above. Listen below to a 5-minute excerpt of the bubbling under.
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Apparently, Howard Lederer really has stepped away from calling the operational shots at Tilt, and it’s totally news to Bitar & Co. that Full Tilt pros were ever stepping foot in non-Tilt branded events, such as the PCA (PokerStars) and Aruba (UB). Sure enough, the Hollywood snub at the Sharon Osborne Trash Talk Championship of the World (at the Hard Rock) charity tournament was a sign of more serious fissures in the poker world to come.

Kinda funny … because these sites have been so worried how a new Harrah’s-branded online gaming presence would negatively affect other online sites branding opportunities at the World Series of Poker, and now their reaction to the threat seems on track to becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.

UPDATE: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4921898&name=poker

Another good video from the LAPC … in this one Matt talks with Eric Baldwin (aka “Basebaldy), the 2009 CardPlayer Player of the Year. We, of course, got to know him as he was tearing through a Venetian Deep Stacks field prior to showing what he really was in town to do at the WSOP.

Anyhow, hate to make this all about the LAPC when tourneys are going on around the world — from Copenhagen to Tunica … but this gives a good glimpse at someone who is now a “big name” in poker though few have gotten to know him yet:

In the above video they talk about Baldwin’s efforts to snap his 0-fer history at the LAPC and where “taking it easy” fits in to the upcoming Ironman competition.

The Venetian Deep Stacks, with the first ever NAPT tag attached to their main event, is underway. Click here to see the schedule.

One other new not necessarily that new thing this go-round is the Best Overall Player Award. Details from The V:

BEST OVERALL PLAYER AWARD
The four players that accumulate the most player points throughout the entire event will be awarded Best Overall Player cash awards. One-half of one percent will be withheld from the prize pool of each daily tournament and added to the Best Overall Player total prize pool. The standings will be updated daily and posted in The Venetian Poker Room. Super Satellites, 7 pm second chance tournament and the $5,000 NAPT are not part of the overall point’s race.