The RunGood Poker Series (RGPS) has announced details of its 2019 spring season “Showbound”.
Among the highlights of the season is awarding two lucky players seats to the popular Poker After Dark TV show. Both players will get the opportunity to showcase their poker skills in front of the cameras and be watched by thousands of fans worldwide in two separate August episodes.
Commenting on this year’s spring season, RunGood patriarch Tana Karn said the main concept came from their desire to make Poker After Dark more accessible to the RunGood market – the daily grinders, those taking part in nightly tournaments, as well as the bar league competitors.
Spring Season 2019 Details
The series will this year stick to its six signature stops, all featuring different venue-specific schedules. The usual staples, which include the Main Event, RunGood Pro Bounty and Run Good Deepstack, will still run across the six stops.
RunGood’s spring 2019 season begins at Horseshoe Council Bluffs in Iowa and will run from February 5 to10, followed by a stop at DownStream Resort, Joplin, Missouri which will run from February 19 to 24.  The action extends to Horseshoe Tunica, Mississippi from March 5 to10 and the fourth stop will be at the Horseshoe Bossier City, Louisiana from March 26-31.
The final two stops will take place from April 23-28 at Harrah’s North in Kansas City, Missouri and culminates at Hard Rock Tulsa in Oklahoma from April 30 to May 5.
PAD Package Details
The winners of each preliminary event as well as all of the contestants who make the Main Event final table will earn seats into a freeroll satellite. They will battle it out on May 6 at Hard Rock Tulsa for a chance to win $5,000 seats to PAD Note that the PAD seats are not taken out of the prize pool. They actually come from PokerGO and RunGood.
The two lucky winners will share the spotlight on PAD in Las Vegas during the month of August, joining a still unannounced line-up. On top of that, they will be treated to a meet-and-greet VIP tour of the PokerGO Studio, and will each be granted $750 for accommodation expenses.
Showbound Theme Inspiration
This year’s Showbound theme also draws inspiration from the famous RunGood Pro Bounty, a long-time RGPS staple. Karn said they just want everyone to have a really good time by incorporating new twists each season. Working with PokerGO, Karn said this year’s spring season will surely generate a whole new level of fun and excitement for everyone involved.
Bringing the Fun Back Into Poker
Showbound is the latest brainchild of Karn, the person behind the success of the RunGood Poker Series. Karn has chosen to veer away from the usual tournament setup wherein huge prize pools always take the spotlight. He does not want to focus so much on the players’ amount of winnings. Instead, he wants to highlight the memorable journeys of the players by putting in a mix of events, from shootouts to PLOs to Pro Bounties, in which players get the chance to win random prizes.
The focus has always been on making poker fun to play and given the amount of pressure most poker tournaments have due to the huge prize pools, the Run Good Series is another opportunity to put the fun back in poker and give players a chance to enjoy themselves at the table without feeling enormous pressure. The added excitement to this year’s series will be the opportunity to win two seats to PAD.
While there are no major changes due to take place this year, players can expect slight differences, which include the appointment of Tara Nobui as event coordinator for both the DownStream and Bossier City stops. Karn will still be running the show at majority of the stops though, so he will still be pretty much visible.
The decision to award PAD seats stemmed from Karn’s own experience of taking part in Friday Night Poker at the PokerGO studio. He was impressed and was totally blown away by the quality of the show, with professional production all over the place. Karn wants to let other players experience that same phenomenal feeling. Focusing more on quality instead of quantity, Karn said he wants to make sure that the series is run correctly to provide the best experience for every player.