For a long time, many cardrooms resisted the idea of offering daily tournaments. After all, why would they want to give a customer the option to pay a one-time tournament entry fee of $10 or $20? Instead they could have him sitting in a cash game, continually paying rake to the house for hours!
But then, savvy poker executives realized the correct way to combine the two. Namely, offer a tournament in the morning to get customers in the door, then hope that they would stick around to play some cash games afterwards. The idea was to make the tournaments go quickly, with rapidly-escalating blinds and antes, so that a winner would be determined within three or four hours. That way, players would have more time to spend in the cash games, where the cardroom's real money is made.
The idea started in Las Vegas and made its way to California. It took some time, but now thankfully the Oaks Card Club in Emeryville is on board. They used to offer tournaments only on Sundays. After some time, they added one on Wednesday nights. But now, at long last, they've expanded their tournament schedule to six days per week, with Thursday being the only non-tournament day. The Monday and Wednesday tournaments are at 6:30 PM, while the Tuesday and Friday tournaments start at 10:00 AM. Saturday’s tournaments begin at 11:00 AM, and the ones on Sunday have a 1:00 PM start time. In case they make any changes, you can always check their current tournament schedule here.
This makes it a lot more convenient for players who wanted to try their luck in tournaments, but weren't free to play on Wednesdays or Sundays. It also means that more players are filtering from the tournaments into cash games, which keeps the cardroom healthy as a whole. The regulars get a greater choice of games, and the cardroom stays busy. It's a win-win for everyone. The only question is why the daily offering of tournaments didn't happen sooner, but I'm not complaining. It's definitely better late than never.
