RunGood Poker Series Returning to Ohio With $200K Guaranteed Main Event

The RunGood Poker Series is heading back to Ohio for RGPS Golden Expedition Ohio, a six-day festival at the Lake Erie Poker Room from September 28 to October 4. Nine ring events are on the schedule, with a $600 Main Event carrying a $200,000 guarantee as the centrepiece. The stop also includes the PokerNews PowerStack, multiple satellites, a tag-team event, a bounty and a Ladies Ring Event.

RunGood returns to Ohio for a six-day stop

The RunGood Poker Series is returning to Ohio for RGPS Golden Expedition Ohio, scheduled for September 28 through October 4 at the Lake Erie Poker Room in Elyria. The stop will feature nine ring events across six days and will finish with a $600 Main Event carrying a $200,000 guarantee. PokerNews is expected to provide live reporting from the Main Event, giving the Ohio stop more visibility than a typical regional tournament series.

The schedule is built to give players several entry points before the Main Event. Opening day includes a $300 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Ring Event, a $300 Omaha 8 Ring Event and the first flight of an on-demand $100 Flip & Go Ring Event. Over the following days, the series adds one-day events, satellites, a tag-team tournament, the PokerNews PowerStack and a black-chip bounty. That variety gives the stop a broader identity than a single large no-limit hold’em tournament.

The $200,000 Main Event is still the centrepiece. It begins October 1 with Flight A and runs through five starting flights before Day 2 on October 4. The structure gives players multiple chances to enter across three days. For a regional series, that is an important feature because it lets local and travelling players fit a starting flight around work and travel schedules while still supporting a meaningful guarantee.

PowerStack and side events build toward the Main Event

One of the main events before the championship is the $400 PokerNews PowerStack Ring Event. It starts September 30 with Flight A at 12:15 p.m. and Flight B at 6:15 p.m., both feeding into the Day 2 finals on October 1. The tournament carries a $30,000 guarantee. Turbo satellites into the PowerStack are also scheduled, giving players a lower-cost path into the $400 event.

The rest of the schedule mixes standard no-limit hold’em with formats that make the stop feel less repetitive. The $300 Tag Team Ring Event takes place September 29, while the on-demand Flip & Go runs across multiple Day 1 sessions. October 4, the final day, includes a $300 Black Chip Bounty Ring Event and a $200 Ladies Ring Event after the Main Event resumes. The schedule therefore keeps side action available even while the largest tournament is approaching its final table.

Satellites are spread throughout the week as well. A $300 Ultimate Package Satellite is scheduled for September 28 with five packages guaranteed, while several $140 Main Event satellites run from October 1 through October 3. The 1-in-5 format is designed to award a seat for roughly every five entries, according to the schedule. Those qualifiers may be particularly important for a $600 regional Main Event because they reduce the direct cost for players who earn a seat.

Five flights feed the $200,000 Main Event

The Main Event begins on October 1 at 3:15 p.m. with Flight A. Flight B starts October 2 at 12:15 p.m., followed by Flight C at 6:15 p.m. Flight D takes place October 3 at 12:15 p.m., and Flight E begins the same evening at 6:15 p.m. All five flights feed into the October 4 Day 2 finals. The $200,000 guarantee applies to the Main Event as a whole rather than to an individual flight.

A five-flight structure can help a regional stop build a larger field because players who miss one session or are eliminated early have additional entry opportunities. The source does not specify the re-entry rules, so the safest reading is simply that there are five scheduled starting flights. What is clear is that the organisers have given the event three separate days in which to accumulate entries before the final day begins.

The Main Event also sits alongside on-demand Flip & Go Main Event satellites on October 2 and October 3, plus scheduled $140 satellites at several times. That creates a funnel from low-cost qualifying into the $600 event. By the time Day 2 begins at 12:15 p.m. on October 4, the field will have been built through a mixture of direct entries and satellite winners across the previous three days.

The previous Ohio stop produced a major regional prize pool

RunGood’s last Ohio visit came in 2024 for the RGPS RunGood Resort Cleveland stop. That event used a larger $1,000 Main Event buy-in and drew 223 entries, creating a $474,962 prize pool. Dane Miller won the tournament for $98,607 after defeating Thomas Gray heads-up. Miller described the run as ‘a bit of a sun-run,’ and the victory represented a career-best score.

The final table included several notable payouts behind the winner. Gray earned $60,495 for second place, Andrew Manchen finished third for $44,080 and Kyle Grupp collected $32,825 in fourth. Bracelet winner Katie Kopp finished fifth for $24,850. Michael Valore, Gregory Brletich, David Berman and Shane Swank rounded out the nine-player final table.

That previous result gives the 2026 stop a useful reference point even though the structure is different. The new Main Event has a lower $600 buy-in and a $200,000 guarantee, so the field could develop in a different way. The comparison is therefore more about RunGood’s established Ohio presence than a direct expectation for entry numbers or prize money.

RGPS Cleveland 2024 final table

The 2024 final table paid all nine players at least $8,910. Miller’s $98,607 first prize was followed by Gray’s $60,495 and Manchen’s $44,080. The payout curve then moved through $32,825 for Grupp, $24,850 for Kopp, $18,755 for Valore, $14,535 for Brletich, $11,255 for Berman and $8,910 for Swank. Those numbers came from a $474,962 pool generated by 223 entries.

For players returning to the Ohio stop in 2026, that history gives the series a local storyline. The venue and exact event branding are different, but the previous Cleveland-area result showed that RunGood could draw a meaningful regional field. The new Golden Expedition stop will test whether a lower Main Event buy-in and multiple starting flights can produce another strong turnout.

After Ohio, the RunGood team is scheduled to move on to Hollywood St. Louis in Missouri for a stop running October 6 through October 11. That event will also feature a $200,000 guaranteed Main Event. The short turnaround underlines how the Ohio tournament fits into a wider regional tour rather than operating as a standalone festival.

RGPS Cleveland Main Event Final Table Results

What players can expect from the Ohio schedule

The practical shape of the week is straightforward. Early days offer smaller ring events, satellites and the Flip & Go structure. The PokerNews PowerStack takes centre stage in the middle of the schedule. From October 1 onward, the $600 Main Event becomes the main focus, with five flights and several satellites feeding into the October 4 final day. Side events continue around it, so players eliminated from the Main Event still have ring tournaments available.

The schedule also spreads buy-ins across several levels. The main side events generally sit between $200 and $400, while satellites start lower and the Main Event is $600. That range makes the stop more accessible than a festival built almost entirely around four-figure tournaments. At the same time, the $200,000 Main Event guarantee and the $30,000 PowerStack guarantee give the series two clear prize-pool targets around which the week is organised.

RGPS Golden Expedition Ohio therefore arrives with a familiar regional-series formula: multiple ring events, a heavily scheduled Main Event, plenty of satellites and a final-day mix of championship and side-event action. The previous Ohio stop produced a nearly $475,000 Main Event pool in 2024. The 2026 version has a different buy-in and guarantee, but it gives the tour another chance to build on that history when cards get in the air on September 28.

The useful way to read this development is to separate the headline from the details underneath it. The source material gives a clear set of dates, names, figures and selection or regulatory facts, and those details matter more than broad assumptions. Looking at them together shows how the story developed step by step rather than as a single isolated announcement.

Another point is that the immediate announcement does not answer every question that could follow from it. Some decisions remain conditional, some outcomes depend on later events, and some comparisons involve products, players or tournaments with different structures. Keeping those limits in view makes the story more precise and avoids turning a factual update into a prediction.

For readers following the story over the coming days, the next useful checkpoints are the dates and milestones already contained in the announcement. Those are the points at which more evidence will become available, whether through a match, a filing, a tournament round or an updated schedule. Until then, the current facts provide the strongest basis for understanding what has changed and what has not.

RGPS Golden Expedition Ohio Schedule