When the RunGood Open kicks off at the PokerStars North American Poker Tour in Las Vegas on November 4 it will be another pivotal moment for the three-time Global Poker Award-winning mid-major series.
The road to a featured spot on the NAPT schedule has been a series of pivotal moments and chance encounters for the RunGood Poker Series (RGPS) and its founder, Tana Karn. What started with a random phone call more than 10 years ago is now a full-fledged poker tour with more than 20 stops around the country every year. It will level up next week with RunGood's NAPT debut — the $1,100 RunGood Open with two starting flights November 4-5.
An unknown number
RunGood Gear started in 2012 as an apparel company that found its place in the poker world providing t-shirts to the rail at the WSOP Main Event. Running a poker tour was never the intention, Karn says, but a random call from an unknown number changed the course of history.
"I got a call from an unknown number back in the day," Karn told PokerOrg. "I answered the phone and it's a gentleman named Dale."
Answering an unknown number — something unheard of in 2024 — was more acceptable a decade ago. There was less fear of spam and more curiosity of the unknown. This time the unknown caller was Dale Hunter, Poker Room Manager at Downstream Casino in Joplin, Missouri.
Karn thought he might want to buy some gear for the poker room, but Hunter had another idea. "He was like, hey man, I've been seeing your stuff around the area a lot and just wanted to see if you'd be open to being the name of a poker event."
Jumping in
He had only been in the industry for a few years but Karn jumped in without hesitation. What came next was a whirlwind of calling, pleading, and even begging people to attend the event. It would feature five tournaments in the Spring of 2014.
"I'm on the phone, texting people, calling people like, hey, this is what's happening. I'm doing my first event ever. Do you think you can make it out? You know, I'm telling people about the tournament details, just straight-up cold calling. I even called my ex-girlfriend, just to be like, hey, can you show up? I just want to make sure somebody shows up. So, in essence, it's kind of cool because a lot of people that are still here with me today, through all of our growth for the past decade, were some of the people that actually showed up for that first event."
One of those early believers was media veteran Chad Holloway. "I met him down in Choctaw. We had a steakhouse dinner when I was playing. I was like, hey, do you think you could help us out with an article or something? And he put it up. It was one of those things where it legitimized the event."
The waterfall effect
The inaugural event of the RunGood Poker Series drew a stellar 344 players to its $675 Main Event in March of 2014. Poker veteran and podcast host Bernard Lee won it for $47,555.
It didn't take long for another nearby poker room to notice. Karn's next call was from Byron Long, poker manager at Hard Rock Tulsa. They put together an event for September of the same year and 317 entries showed up for the $675 Main Event.
"That was like a waterfall effect. Our first two stops were Downstream and Hard Rock Tulsa and that is where things got really crazy."
A chance meeting at the WSOP led to a connection with Horseshoe Council Bluffs in Iowa — a poker room just outside of Omaha, Nebraska. The 2015 RGPS schedule would feature two stops in Iowa and return trips to Downstream and Tulsa. The seven-stop season culminated in the first RunGood Cup Championship at Harrah's in New Orleans.
"I look back at that moment and it being so pivotal because of that whole thing where everything's a small community — (Horseshoe Council Bluffs) was part of the Caesars property family. That opened up a lot of other people to think, oh, who are these RunGood guys and what are they doing?"
'Things just started to click'
The Caesars connection opened up the floodgate with new partners. "We ended up going to Horseshoe Tunica, Harrah’s Kansas City, Horseshoe-Bossier City (in Louisiana), and it was just one of those things where word spread around about us and things just started to click."
Fast forward to today, the RunGood Poker Series will feature more than 20 stops in 2024. They've added partnerships with PokerGO, PokerStars, and WPT — all of which have enhanced the experience for players who can parlay RunGood success into spots at larger events with bigger prize pools. RunGood has also expanded its reach with regular stops at growing poker rooms like Thunder Valley in California, bestbet in Jacksonville, and Graton in the Bay Area.
"We have companies coming in and helping us with sponsorships and prize support and just creating a bigger community. PokerGO has been instrumental in supporting us with the Dream Seat Invitational and now PokerStars has come in with the NAPT and the Gold Passes. So it's one of those things where it's nice to see the hard work that we put in to build this community. Other companies that are bigger than us see the value in teaming with us and partnering and collaborating."
Hawaiian shirts and cowboy hats
The formula, Karn says, is a dedicated focus on the player experience. A fun, welcoming environment brings new players to the game and keeps them there, something at which Rungood has excelled.
"The moment you can get somebody to know going into this event that there's going to be people in Hawaiian shirts, baseball jerseys, cowboy hats, or whatever, right? All of a sudden that barrier of entry of 'Oh, this game is so serious' is gone. What if I screw up? Or what if everyone makes fun of me?"
The challenge is to make poker more fun without taking away from the game, Karn says, and to keep the experience fresh. "That's when themes came about."
The RunGood calendar is split into two seasons, and each of the seasons carries a different theme. "We have different themes, different initiatives, different sponsors, just making sure that when everyone comes back to the party, it's a new party, right?"
All the small things
Karn has a long list of friends and colleagues with whom he shares credit, but perhaps none more than Hayley Hochstetler, RunGood's Vice President. Hochstetler is on the road almost year-round in support of the tour, and Karn credits her with helping to usher the company through COVID's difficult times.
"(Hochstetler) has been instrumental in helping us create these amazing optics for the tour on top of the team that's building that content all the way down from the ambassadors, to the reporters and the merch table, and even the room itself."
Karn and Hochstetler will now bring the show to the NAPT in Las Vegas. The tour has given away $10,000 Gold Passes all season to the top player from each stop and they'll host the RunGood Open, an official PokerStars event with two opening flights at a $400K guarantee on November 4. For Karn, it's a chance to continue to spread the word and bring the RunGood spirit to the masses.
"I just want to showcase how poker can be displayed and, you know, show other tours or show other operators or show other people in the community. There are different ways to display poker and, you know, don't get me wrong — huge prize pools, the money, and the trophies are all great things and we use those elements as well."
But there's more to building a community of poker players, he says. It's about seeing familiar faces, catching up with friends, and winning a coveted RGPS ring — or a belt buckle, or a pair of cowboy boots. "Something you can't buy."
"I think I've learned over the years – I know what I like and I know how to have fun. But it is always nice to spice it up every now and then, right? You know, the small things matter. It all adds up at the end. It just makes for a better product."
