#PNWPokerCal Planner for 7 December 2016

Blogiversary

Today is the 75th anniversary of the “date which will live in infamy,” according to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. When I was a kid, it seemed like it was something that happened a long time before I was born, but in reality, I was born just one day before the 20th anniversary (you can do the math, presumably), and now 20 years doesn’t seem like such a long time.

Next Sunday is the sixth anniversary of the first post here at Mutant Poker, so if the amount of time between now and Pearl Harbor was a year, the blog would have been running for almost a month of that year, and that’s truly a weird thing for me to contemplate.

The early days of the blog were mostly self-analysis of online tournaments, on Cake and Full Tilt. Black Friday hit just four months after I started the blog, after which I started playing more live, at Aces Players Club and Portland Players Club (where I won my first live tournament of any size in May of 2011). The next month, I final-tabled the first $10K guarantee I played at Encore Club and I was kind of hooked, in addition to being at loose ends without any steady work. I won a noon game at Encore in July, which got me into the next month’s Champions Freeroll, where I took 2nd place for my first $1K payday. That was eclipsed in the fall when I won a $10K outright, flew to Vegas three hours after I won, and played in a $2,500 buyin Venetian Main Event to try to get to EPT Prague for a major birthday. (Didn’t happen and never will now, as you know if you’ve been reading the blog).

I’ve kept meticulous records all along the way (every buyin, every cash, every expense for nearly six years in an online database) and my attempts to analyze tournament poker profitability led to a post that turned into articles for PokerNews and Deadspin, as well as an NVG thread at 2+2. That led to interviews with Limon on his PokerSesh show, work as a live reporter at the WSOP this year, and this morning I’m going to be recording another interview with High Roller Radio, just a mont after WSOP final tablist and New York Times best-selling author James McManus was on the show.

So thanks everyone for reading and encouragement. I particularly want to thank Brad Smith at Hot Pepper Studios, who—in addition to being my employer for the past few months—was the person who suggested six years ago that if I wanted to get serious about poker, I should start a blog.

Jammin’ Jay

Jay Zeman was a fixture in the NW poker scene for years, both as a player and as a dealer, before moving to the East Coast last year. If you’d played poker in the Seattle area, particularly, you’re sure to have run into him. He still writes about the Pacific Northwest poker scene for Ante Up magazine. Tuesday, he got the biggest cash of his tournament life, over $33,000, for an eighth-place finish at the WSOPC Cherokee Main Event.

Portland Poker Holiday Championship Series

I played the first event in the series before heading to Pacific City for a weekend, got lucky in one spot, made it into the money, and then made a bad move with [ax 9x] and about 11bb. A shorter stack on my left had just doubled up, thought about it for a second, then went all in to call with [ax kx], he flopped a king, I turned a nine, and he stayed ahead on the river, then I was out a few hands later. Min cash! I already posted the results from the series here.

Deal of the Week: LAPC

Time to look ahead to the new year. The LA Poker Classic at the Commerce Casino is always one of the first major events of the calendar year in the West, running from mid-January to early March. The dates (13 January—2 March) have been set for a while, but the schedule was just released last week.

Unless you’ve got the time and money to spend a months-and-a-half in Los Angeles, the LAPC is something you need to pick and choose from. Here are a few of the highlights I see for myself and other Portland tournament players.

Opening weekend there are three events with a total of $350K in guarantees. 13 January (Friday the 13th), is a 2-day $175 buyin with a $100K guarantee, only one entry flight at 5pm. On 14 January, there’s a $150K with a buyin of $570, also a 2-day event. Sunday, 15 January is a 1-day $100K tournament with a $350 buyin that includes a $100 bounty.

There are a number of non-NLHE tournaments throughout the series (mostly on weekdays) but of special note to Portlanders is the 2 February $570 buyin Big O tournament. No guarantee, but it’s two days (ending on a Friday). There’s a NL HORSE tournament on 19 February if you ever want to know what lighting $340 on fire feels like.

The series culminates with a 5-day WPT Championship event with a $10K buyin. Only one starting day (25 February) but there are lots of opportunities for satelliting in on Saturday nights throughtout the series and in the week leading up to the start.

Only a Day Away

Remember to keep an eye on the #PNWPokerCal Twitter hashtag and the PNW Poker Calendar for upcoming events!