The RunGood Poker Series takes its Golden Expedition to the East Coast next week, with RGPS Golden Expedition Maryland running September 21-27 at MGM National Harbor and headlined by a $1,300 Main Event carrying a $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. Twelve ring events fill out seven days of action, and PokerNews will be on site reporting the Main Event.
For a tour built on affordability, a quarter-million guarantee at a $1,300 buy-in is a statement of confidence rather than a gamble — and the numbers from RunGood's last visit to the property explain exactly why.
The Schedule: Twelve Rings in Seven Days
The series opens Monday, September 21 with a $420 RunGood Package Satellite at 10:15 a.m., followed at 6:15 p.m. by the $300 Tag Team Ring Event, priced at $150 per player. Tag team events have become a RunGood signature, and they tend to draw the regulars who follow the tour from stop to stop.
Tuesday brings the $400 Seniors NLH Ring Event at 10:15 a.m. with a $25,000 guarantee, the $200 Series Opener NLH at 2:15 p.m., and the $250 Ambassador Double Green Chip Bounty at 6:15 p.m.
Wednesday is the biggest non-Main day. The $400 PokerNews PowerStack Ring Event runs two flights — Flight A at 10:15 a.m. and Flight B at 4:15 p.m. — sharing a $50,000 guarantee, with the Day 2 finals folded into Thursday at 12:15 p.m. The $500 Five Card PLO Ring Event starts at 12:15 p.m. the same day.
Main Event Structure
The $1,300 RunGood Main Event runs three starting flights: Flight 1A on Thursday, September 24 at 11:15 a.m., Flight 1B on Friday at 11:15 a.m., and Flight 1C on Saturday at 11:15 a.m. Day 2 finals play to a winner from 12:15 p.m. on Sunday, September 27.
Three flights into a one-day finish is standard for the regional circuit and it matters for planning. A player who busts Thursday can re-enter Friday and again Saturday, which means the effective cost of "playing the Main" is a decision about how many bullets you are willing to fire, not a single $1,300 entry. That distinction trips up a lot of recreational players, and it is the single most important thing to settle before you arrive — our guide to bankroll management covers how to size a trip budget around multi-flight events rather than headline buy-ins.
Alongside the Main, Thursday offers the $500 Big O Ring Event at 3:15 p.m. and the $300 Big Bounty Nightly at 6:15 p.m. Friday adds the $300 Women's NLH Ring Event at 6:15 p.m. with a $10,000 guarantee. Sunday closes the series with the $500 Black Chip Bounty NLH Ring Event at 1:15 p.m., guaranteed for $25,000, plus a $300 Send-Off NLH Ring Event.
Two mixed-game events — the Five Card PLO and the Big O — give the four-card and five-card crowd something to do, which is increasingly common on regional schedules. If you have only played hold'em, the differences between hold'em and Omaha are worth a read before you sit down; these are the softest fields of the week, but only if you understand the game.
The Satellite Routes Are Unusually Generous
RunGood has built four separate paths into the Main Event, and they are priced at genuinely different levels.
The $200 Flip & Go Main Event Satellite runs on demand every single day from Monday through Saturday. The $160 Main Event Satellite pays one seat in ten and runs at 9:15 a.m. on both Thursday and Friday. Saturday's $290 satellite pays one in five, also at 9:15 a.m.
The choice between those two is a real strategic decision. The $160 one-in-ten gives you roughly eight-to-one leverage on a $1,300 seat but a 10 percent strike rate. The $290 one-in-five costs nearly double but converts at 20 percent. For a player with a fixed budget, firing two $160 shots is not equivalent to one $290 shot, and the structure of each — how deep the starting stacks are, how fast the levels move — should drive the decision more than the price tag.
The presence of on-demand Flip & Go satellites all week is the real accessibility play. A recreational player can wander in on a Tuesday evening, put up $200, and be into a $1,300 Main Event within the hour. That is how RunGood converts casual players into Main Event entrants, and it is the mechanic that underpins the guarantee.
Why a $250K Guarantee Is Safe Here
MGM National Harbor operates one of the largest poker rooms east of the Mississippi, and RunGood already has recent data on the market.
April's 2026 RGPS Passport Maryland stop ran the same $1,300 Main Event and drew 307 runners for a $349,980 prize pool. Arash Asadabadi beat John Major heads-up for $73,037 and his first RGPS ring, with Brian Mahler third for $33,241 and RunGood ambassador Julie Cornelius fourth for $21,751.
Work backwards from those figures and the economics become clear. Each entry contributed roughly $1,140 to the prize pool, meaning about 220 entries are needed to cover the $250,000 guarantee. April produced 307. The guarantee is set nearly 30 percent below what the property has already proven it can deliver — comfortable for RunGood, and a genuine floor for players. First place took about 21 percent of April's pool, or 56 times the buy-in.
Asadabadi, for his part, said he never doubted the outcome. "I felt that I was due this one," he told PokerNews after the win.
The RunGood Model, and Why It Works
RGPS built its following by ignoring Las Vegas. While the major tours concentrate their calendars on the Strip and a handful of premium destinations, RunGood has spent years running weeks in Joplin, Tunica, Kentucky, Southern Indiana, Dallas and New Orleans — markets with real poker rooms and real player pools that the big tours visit rarely or never.
The proposition is consistent: buy-ins that start at $160 and top out at $1,300, a ring instead of a bracelet, and a schedule dense enough that a player can drive in for three days and get full value. That consistency is the product. A player who cashes in Joplin knows exactly what they are getting in Maryland.
It also makes the tour a natural first live series for players stepping up from online. The fields contain strong regulars, but they are not the international circuit grinders you meet at a $5,000 event, and the low-end ring events — $200 and $300 buy-ins — are a reasonable place to learn live tournament rhythm. Players making that transition from online to live poker should spend time on the fundamentals first; our poker strategy section and beginner-friendly site rankings are the right starting points for building volume before spending money on travel.
What East Coast Players Should Take Away
Three practical points.
The guarantee is real but unlikely to be tested. Expect an overlay only if something unusual happens with attendance; plan instead for a prize pool north of $300,000 if turnout matches April.
The satellite ladder is the value. At a $1,300 buy-in, the difference between entering directly and qualifying for $160 or $200 is the difference between a profitable trip and a break-even one for most recreational bankrolls.
And the side schedule is where the softest spots are. The Seniors event, the Women's event and the nightly bounty tournaments carry buy-ins between $250 and $400 with guarantees attached — considerably better risk-adjusted value than firing three Main Event bullets.
For players based in the US, September is a dense month on the regional calendar, with RGPS also running the Mississippi Poker Championship in Tunica from September 15 and a Caribbean Poker Series stop in Aruba still to come. Our tournament hub tracks the series worth the drive.