Heartland Poker Tour & Blackhawk’s Swollen Limits

I love living in Colorado. The weather is comfortable pretty much year round, boasting 300+ days of sunshine a year. However, as a poker player, it sucked, until now!

Blackhawk is a small town in Gilpin County Colorado. It is an old mining town turned casino hot spot. But, attached to the laws allowing gambling in this casino hot spot was a clause specifying a $5 bet max. This bet max restricted most of what Blackhawk was allowed to offer in terms of casino games and poker limits. However, this all changed on July 1, 2009. While I was in Vegas, right as the Main Event was starting, Blackhawk instituted an increase of the bet limit to $100. This is due to a majority vote that took place this past election boosting the gambling limit, lifting the gaming hour limits, and adding casino games such as roulette and craps.  This has forever changed the poker community here in Colorado.

While only being able to offer $2-5 spread limit and $5-5 limit, Colorado’s live poker games were very restrictive and limited. It is still poker, but at a certain time in a poker players career, those games become somewhat of a joke. Kinda of like spinning your wheels in mud. That was then, today, even with the $100 bet max, Colorado poker has changed and is now maturing into a true poker destination.

Because of these new gaming policies, and to ride the advertising wave that the casinos are pushing, the Heartland Poker Tour has returned to the Golden Gates Casino in Blackhawk, CO with another event. The HPT was just here in Blackhawk during April, which I played . Now, because of the new gaming laws, the HPT event is like every other stop, boasting a single event with a buy-in of $1500+150. Before, the only way into the event was to qualify via a satellite. Now you can just buy in.

This past Saturday, July 11, I went up to Blackhawk with my friend Eric to witness the new games being spread. We now have the option of playing $1-2 w/ $100 spread limit, $2-5 w/ $100 spread limit, $2-4 limit, $4-8 limit and even $20-40 limit. The spread limit games play like a NL game, just capped at $100. I didn’t bother playing any cash games, instead I played a mega satellite for a seat in the HPT Main Event. $360 buyin – $1650 seat. I won!! Day 1 has three flights, I have the best flight, Day 1 ‘C’. That means I play this coming Saturday (7/18) night and come back Sunday morning for Day2 and the final table. I have a good feeling about this event… I even have a brand new sports coat I want to wear on TV – lol.