Las week on the PokerGo Podcast, co-hosts Tim Duckworth and Donnie Peters were discussing the oft-repeated theory that playing the last day of the WSOP Main Event was the best way to run up a big stack.
As it happens, I’d taken a look at that assumption in an article at PokerNews back in 2015 (just a few months before I interviewed for a job there with Donnie and Matt Parvis, as a matter of fact).
In that article, I charted end-of-day chip stacks against entrants, breaking each day’s finishers into six groups: top 10%, 70% to 90%, 50% to 70%, 30% to 50%, 10% to 30%, and bottom 10%.
There wasn’t any statistical correlation between the number of entrants on each day and the stack distribution that I could find, the biggest end-of-day stack between 2011 and 2015 was on a Day 1A (2012). In 2011, the biggest ending stack was on Day 1A, and in 2014 the biggest stack on 1A was larger than on 1B despite a field only a third the size.
The other groupings remained very consistent. The first decile (bottom 10%) topped out consistently around 45% of the starting stack. The fourth decile (40%) had just over starting stack. The median at 50% was about 120% of starting stack, etc.
I wasn’t particularly surprised when I ran numbers for 2016 to 2022 (2020 excluded). This time, I used a percentage of starting stack to represent the end-of-day numbers, because the number of chips went from 50,000 to 60,000 in 2019. Again, everything except the top 10% is very consistent. And again, earlier starting days with fewer entries have outperformed larger fields: 2017 Day 1A had the largest end-of-day stack; the same thing happened in 2019.
Where there is a definite correlation is in the number of players that survive each day. Larger fields have a larger percentage of the field surviving to Day 2. Of the 20 starting days from 2016 to 2022, the range of survivors was from 67% to 77%, and the percentage of survivors on Day 1A was never more than 72%. The percentage of survivors on the last day—Day 1C until 2019 and Day 1D in 2021 and 2022—was never lower than 75%.
While there was only a 3% difference in the number of survivors between the first and last starting day in 2019, in each of the other years, there were between 5% and 9% more entering players making it to Day 2. Only on 2022 Day 1C were there more survivors on a later starting day.
So if you’re looking for a reason to play the last entry day for the Main Event, that’s your reason.
Tomorrow’s the last entry day for this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event and as I’m still in Portland for a variety of reasons, it looks like another year that I’m not playing it. Good luck to everybody luck enough to be playing today (Steve Roselius) and tomorrow, and to the folks that have already made it through to Day 2 (Angela Jordison and Jackie Burkhart, among others)! Wish I was there to at least rail.
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and thge number of entries.
This cash wasn’t as large as some of the others this far down the list (which is roughly ordered by the total amount of winnings reported in this period) but Mufti racked up four other smaller cashes over the last couple weeks of June, and two more on the first two days of July.
If you’ve got a sharp eye, you might be wondering: “Hey, there are three WSOP Deep Stack results shown, with the same number of entries, and players in the top three positions, were they all from the same day?” If so, you’d be correct, because Hassell, Kriventsov, and Gates were the PNW trifecta on 20 June.
This individual result was just over the threshold to get on the Leaderboard, but Mackoff is another of the serial cashers appearing here, with twelve WSOP cashes (both live and online) in June, as well as a cash at the Venetian.
It was the first poker series in the US Pacific Northwest in twoyears (since I’m now including Alberta and British Columbia in the Leaderboard rankings, I have to acknowledge that they got the jump on us last fall), and players came out to Lincoln City, despite having to (more or less) wear masks, and suffer high fuel prices and sunny beaches.
David and I had to get our feet wet.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to play the whole week (job) so I took a couple days off early in the series so that I could play the 6-Max and HORSE tournaments. My sometime travel partner David Long — who I hadn’t really talked to for two years —sent me a message a couple weeks beforehand, and I switched up my reservation so we could split a room. Already saving money!
We got to Lincoln City about a half-hour after the start of Sunday afternoon’s tournament, a $25K GTD NLHE running while the opening $100K was in Day 2. David went off to register for the cash game waiting lists; I hit the tournament registration desk.
I only lasted a couple of hours in the $25K, by which it was check-in time at the motel, so I headed off to get our bags up to the room, then came back to wait for David to head up for dinner at the 60s Cafe and Diner for a burger and a Boozy Shake, the better to play the 3-Seat GTD NLHE Main Event Satellite (2 bullets and it didn’t help).
Monday morning was the $50K GTD NLHE 6-Max, which I had been looking forward to as much as the HORSE. I was a little late for the start, owing to a lot more folks than I was expecting at the Pig & Pancake, but we managed to get breakfast and over to the casino before it was too late. The buy-in on this one was $550, plus the dealer appreciation, so it’s one of the bigger outlays I’m willing to do these days.
Things got off to a pretty decent start, when I picked up a pair of sevens and his a set versus top pair on my first hand. Another set of events in round 4 pumped me up to about 50K from the 32K start. Lost some ground, then picked back up to make it to around 80K before I ran into sevens as my own nemesis, hitting trip tens with AxTx against a full house of sevens over tens. I called off 20K on the river alone and was down under the starting stack. That may have been the crucial point for me in this one.
I was under 20K at the beginning of the next level, four hours in, then I started to pick up some steam after a table change. We were under 30 players (with 12 places paying) six hours in. I was up to 30 big blinds, but the average was twice that. Another table move put me in with some guys who were even older than I am.
This new table is making me rethink skipping the old man tournament tomorrow morning.
No. No, I WILL play HORSE as planned. Different set of old men.
Another hour, and making a lucky river gunshot straight for Broadway put me up above average for the first time in a while. After a dinner break, we were seven places from the money, and I was back down to 20 big blinds. I did get to see three all-spade flops in a row, which was kind of bizarre.
The board was still reading 16 players remaining when the end came for me. I picked up AxQx for my big blind and I had about 15bb, which I was reasonably certain was the shortest stack left. We were five-handed at our table, and the UTG player raised to 18K (3x). One of the older players at the table (who’d been grumbling to me about showing the aggressive ‘kids’ like UTG what’s what) pushed it to 40K, and I knew that I was taking a bit of a risk to race so close to the bubble, but I went all-in, nonetheless. With the extra 60K, I was sure I could get through the bubble, even with 4 players left. UTG folded right away. The guy who 3-bet thought it over for a bit, wondered aloud if I might have ace-king, and looked at his stack, which I think was probably well over 300K, before deciding to call with 9x9x. The flop was under eights, there was a king on the turn (would that I had the ace-king!) and he was safe on the river.
When I got up, Forrest Auel was taking a couple people off the board and I saw that it was just showing 13. I asked if I was the actual bubble boy and he told me that I was 14th, so I guess a couple went out just before me. I might have held my fire if I’d known we were at 14 instead of 16, but I think I played this game pretty well over all.
The HORSE tournament wasn’t starting until 4pm on Tuesday, so after walking down to the Pacific Ocean to get our feet wet (they turned to ice in about two minutes because it was still in the 40s at mid-day and the water at the Oregon coast is always cold) we headed up to the cash games, which were already under way by the time we got there. David put himself on all the lists, and I signed up for some NLHE, Limit Hold’em, and an unlikely Stud game, then we went off in search of some Game King slot machines. After a small win, we got called back to the live action games, David sat down in Big O, and I got a seat in the $1/$3 NLHE. Aside from a couple live cash sessions at the WSOP last fall, between not really being a cash player and COVID, I hadn’t played live cash NLHE since my last trip to Chinook Winds two years ago, but I managed to make a little profit over 90 minutes, then went off to sign up for the tournament.
The $10K GTD HORSE started off in Stud Hi-Lo, and I somehow managed to scoop the first hand with the nut flush and a 76 low for a decent pot — since everyone was in on it at first — but I ran into some trouble in the Hold’em round, holding on to top pair twice in a row against players who picked up trips on the turn.
Two hours in, the big bet was already up to 1K, and I was down to 9500 chips from a 14K starting stack. But the next hour, in an Omaha Hi-Lo round, I somehow scooped a pot with a pair of threes and got back over starting stack.
It wasn’t going to be back-to-back cashes for me in HORSE tournaments, however. Once again, it was Hold’em that stuck it to me. Not long before the end of round 12, I 3-bet with AxKx and the original raiser and I pumped it up to 7500, five bets at that level. I had him slightly outchipped. I whiffed the low flop, but called his bet. The turn was an ace, and he bet it, I put in another bit get, and he was all in for a bit more. He flipped over QxQx. All good. Until the queen came on the river, leaving me with less than two big bets.
Qe switched into Omaha and I took down a 3/4 pot by making a straight with middle cards and still having the low, then picked up 2x4x4x5x and it looked like I might pick up some more but no low came in, and though I had a set of fours, the queens guy had a set of jacks.
That was it for me! Back home to go to work the next morning, driving on the mountain road to Salem in the dark and the rain. Post-Poker Fun! I wasn’t able to make it down to the Main Event the next weekend, but I think I played about as well as I ever have, despite being a wee bit rusty.
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
No results here yet from the PacWest Poker Classic, but there are definitely some interesting things from outside the region.
Coldfield, Washington’s Paul Wood was 5th in the Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza #29 $100K GTD NLHE MonsterStack, out of 177 entries ($171.7K prize pool). It’s their biggest cash to date, and it’s enough to take Woods from #4588 to #2815 on the PNW Poker Leaderboard.
Picking up results from early December, Prabakaran Sivabalasundaram from Calgary was 5th out of 233 entries in this event at Cash Casino in their home town. The prize pool reached C$221K. Sivabalasundaram gains more than a hundred spots on the Leaderboard, landing at #822. 4th place was claimes by Deron Noksana from the Northwest Territories, jumping seventy places to #434. Third place gave David Howat (Calgary) a two-hundred-place boost to #747. Lethbridge, Alberta’s Kevin Martin took 2nd, for a gain of twenty-three spots (#172). And on the top of the heap was Jimmy Lee from Edmonton, climbing from #77 to #69.
Edmonton’s Allen Butkovic was runner-up in the Pure Poker Tour Edmonton #5 NLHE. The prize pool was over C$100K with 362 entries. Butkovic gains nine places, to #268.
This event (mid-February, not last year!) got 481 entries, generating a prize pool of C$438K. Krista Kay Teller (Leduc, Alberta) picked up their biggest-ever cash in 7th and gained twelve hundred places on the Leaderboard, landing at #2117. Just ahead of Tellier in 6th was Ali Razzaq of Edmonton, climbing from #1259 to #993. Also from Edmonton was 4th-place finisher Tyler St. Clair, rising thirty-six spots to #304. Ali Taghi Khani (Edmonton) placed 2nd in both this event and Pure Poker Tour Edmonton #3 NLHE Bounty(306 entries, C$144K prize pool), for their two biggest-ever cashes and nearly nine hundred places on the Leaderboard, now #634. Edmonton’s Andy Truong was the winner of the Main Event, gaining sixty-two places, to #166.
Climbing almost thirteen hundred places to #1835 is Sherwood park, Alberta’s Edgar Zurawell, who won the Wild West Shootout #3 NLHE Mini Main Event, ahead of 244 other players and with a prize pool just short of C$63K.
James Schmidt (Spokane) got their biggest-ever cash and fifty-six spots on the Leaderboard (#423) with 2nd place at the Wynn Millions Poker Series $40K GTD NLHE Seniors. 348 entries made a prize pool just over $120K.
Coming in 13th at the Wynn Millions $1.5M GTD NLHE Mystery Bounty, Beaverton’s Anthony An took down their biggest-ever cash and rose over four hundred places to #983. And it was Rambo Halpern — former owner of one of the first poker clubs I played in — who took an astounding 2nd-place (plus some bounties) in the field of 2,103 that more than doubled the guarantee. It bumps him up by two hundred places, to #150 on the PNW Poker Leaderboard.Brian Cunningham (Portland) gained nearly two thousands spots on the Leaderboard by winning the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza I #24 $100K NLHE MonsterStack. Cunningham beat a field of 195 (prize pool of $189K).
Dylan Linde ekes out a rare Top Twenty move: up one spot from #6 to #5 (edging out James Romero) with 7th place at the LA Poker Classic #28 NLHE Main Event, which got 119 entries and a prize pool of $1.12M. Which also brings us to the last name on this edition of the PNW Poker Leaderboard: Seattle’s Jayakrishnan Nair, who claimed 2nd place and a forty-four spot climb, to #86.
NOTE: I started this a month ago! And I’m just now finishing it up. Sorry for the delay, in the meantime I’ve qualified for the WSOP Super Seniors event, been to New York City for the anniversary of my marriage to Mrs. Poker Mutant, and Hawai’i to spend a couple days with my dad—things are just that busy! Happy Holidays!
The WSOP Main Event is over and done with, with al of the PNW participants out before the final tables. I have to admit that after including Mitchell Halverson and Jesse Lonis in the 2021 WSOP Main Event Trackerbecause WSOP has them as Oregon players, that I was disappointed to see they were listed on the Nevada and New York leaderboards at Hendon Mob, so they aren’t included in the combined PNW leaderboard.
Even without them, there’s a lot of territory to cover.
Let’s start with Kenn Pluard from Happy Valley, Oregon, who was 25th in the field of 1,441 at the Wynn Fall Classic $1.5M GTD NLHE. That, and a career-high cash at the Main Event (338th) bounce Pluard from #978 to #584.
Maxwell Young reappears on the Leaderboard with a 12th-place finish at the Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series II #35 $400K GTD NLHE UltimateStack. The tournament got 1,408 entries and pushed the prize pool to $1.35M. Calgary’s Phil Wright nabbed 4th in the same event, for a career-high score and a jump on the Leaderboard from #2508 to #505.
Bellevue’s Brian Orrico took 48th in the 5,404-entry tournament, going from #2725 to #1814 on the Leaderboard. The Seniors is typically one of the largest fields; previous years with only one entry day set records for the largest single-entry-day live poker tournaments. This year’s run with two entry days generated $4.8M for the prize pool. Coming in at 34th was Victoria player Rhonda Shepek, with a career best and a jump of 2500 places to #2133. Robert Sun from Anchorage came in 22nd and climbs to #1932 from #4026. Coming in at 17th was John McNaughton of Innisfall, Alberta with a biggest-ever cash and debut on the leaderboard at #1349. Every two years, Robert Davis comes out of Eagle River, Alaska to cash in the Seniors tournament—he has exactly 3 Hendon Mob entries: 2017, 2019, and this year—all in the same event. This year he hit it big, with 2nd place, far eclipsing his previous totals, and leaping from #4320 to #162 on the Leaderboard. Davis is now #7 on the Alaska state leaderboard.
Robert Davis
Red Deer, Albeta’s Jason Volk was runner-up in the Venetian #36 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It’s Volk’s largest cash (this is the season!) and he moves almost 1800 spots to #870.
Dwayne Hillock from Prince George, British Columbia came in 14th in WSOP #55 NLHE Colossus out of 9,399 entries. The prize pool was just over $3.1M. Hillock rises over 800 places to #1533.
The Wynn $3M GTD NLHE Championshipmade a prize pool of $5.7M with 1,775 entries and Brett Kennedy of Sattle took 50th, climbing forty spots on the Leaderboard to #319.
It was a biggest-ever cash for John Nielsen (Sylvan Lake, Alberta) with a win in the Autumn at Aria $40K GTD NLHE. Nielsen goes up more than 600 spots to #958.
Monroe, Washington’s Roger Hammond is up 800 places to #1937 with a 7th-place finish in the Venetian #40 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. 358 entries and a $347K prize pool.
The Super Seniors event (60+) got nearly 1,900 entries this year, makng a prize pool of just under $1.7M. Sad to say, I’m qualifying for this by next summer. Three PNW players made the final two tables. Alberta’s Gary Bain got a largest-ever cash placing in 16th and jumping eighty spots to #846. From masco, Washington, Anthony Simpson took 13th for a climb from #536 to #476. And you may remember Bill Stabler of Salem having been the runner-up in the Seniors event the last time everyone got together at the Rio in 2019; he came in 4th in this tournament.
Bill Stabler
Chris Brewer got shafted by The Bet that Limon won back in 2015 because people picked Koray Aldemir for their slate of players in the Main Event. Hopefully, his 5th-place finish in the WSOP #60 Poker Players Championship 6-Max is some consolation. There were 63 entries at $50K each. Brewer maintains at #16 on the Leaderboard.
Final result of the 144 players drafted in main was $9,832,700 (thanks @kooraay90 ) for 680% roi. Not sure how much to take away from this. The result is clearly top 5-10% run, but also a bet like this always going to be won because one of the drafted players went very deep
Portland’s James Haddad made it to 12th in the field of 725, which is good for a move from #126 to #125. Dylan Wilkerson came in 8th, and stays at #13. Sterling Lopez out of Anchorage took 4th, for their biggest recorded cash and a move from #2961 to #708.
Nearly two thousand entries in this event pushed the prize pool to just under $1.9M. Sean Banahan from Twin Falls, Idaho made it to 24th for a career-high cash, and moves about six hundred spots to #1666. Coming in 9th was Jimmy Lee from Edmonton, which moves him two notches up to #77.
It was a largest-ever cash for Puyallup’s Jason Diaz, placing 4th out of 355 in the Aria $40K GTD NLHE. Just about triple the guarantee with 355 entries. Diaz jumps up about four thousand places on the Leaderboard to #2699.
Anchorage’s Young Ji won the Aria $30K GTD PLO8 in either a 3 or 4-way deal (186 entries, $74K prize pool). Ji is a 2015 WSOP PLO8 bracelet winner. He climbs 5 spots on the Leaderboard to #130.
Noah Bronstein was heads-up for the WSOP #64 NLHE/PLO 8-Max bracelet. There was a field of 579 entries at $5K each. Bronstein moves up nearly twenty places to #34.
Donald Kehler of Prince George, British Columbia bounced more than a thousand places to #1849 with a win (and largest-ever cash) in the $400 Rio Daily Deep Stack Series NLHE. The tournament on 3 November got 184 entries and whipped up a prize pool of over $60K.
From Redmond, Washington, Karimon Umarov placed 27th in the 3,821-player Mini Main freeze out, which had a prize pool of just over $3.4M. Umarov debuts on the Leaderboard with their biggest-ever result at #3601. Prasad Dobbins from Anchorage got their biggest cash and a boost from #4173 to #2256 with 20th place. And Seattle’s Matt Jewett got 6th in this event just before he jumped into the actual Main (more to come).
Reminder: Just doing the big winners here. This thing’s long enough as it is, I apologize if you cashed and didn’t get on the Leaderboard round-up, if you didn’t get something like a 300% ROI or better, I can just say, “Good job!” That leads us to Rittie Chuaprasert from here in Portland, who came in 259 out of this year’s field of 6,650 entries. That’s within the top 4%, with another 11% of the field cashing but not making it into this write-up, if it’s any consolation. Chuaprasert goes from #367 to #295. Viola, Idaho’s Michael Faulkner picked up their largest cash at 124th in the Main and goes up over five hundred places to #646. Another biggest cash was for Weston Pring of Calgary, at 101st (just before Ali Imsirovic’s father Salko at 100th, who—I believe—still lives in Vancouver, Washington, but is listed in with the WSOP and Hendon Mob as a Las Vegas resident). Pring is up about a hundred and fifty places, to #347. At 90th was Fatima Nanji out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Nanji is up ninety-one places to #239, with their own biggest cash. Nanji was one of the last two women remaining at the beginning of Day 6. Adam Walton jumps sixty-five places to #102 by coming in 42nd (and another personal best cash). Matt Jewett from Shoreline, Washington came in 28th, and doubled his lifetime earnings with the single cash, climbing more than four hundred places to #135. Finally, it’s Bellevue-based Jung Woo, whose 19th-place finish was (yet another) best-ever recorded cash. It’s just the fifth cash for Woo and makes up 96% of his total winnings. Woo’s standing on the Leaderboard goes from #5358 to #247.
Fatima Nanji
Vikas Sundhi from Bellingham and Edmonton’s Alemu Makonen came in 10th and 6th, respectively in the Wynn Fall Classic $400K GTD NLHE, a 1,438-entry tournament with a prize pool of $1.4M. Sundhi got their largest-ever cash and moves up one hundred and fourteen places to #550; Makonen holds at #54.
Jose Mendoza took 3rd in the Venetian #44 $100K GTD NLHE MonsterStackin a six-way deal that gave the Kennewick player their biggest-ever cash. Mendoza moves nearly three hundred places on the Leaderboard, to #670. Almost six hundred entries tripled the guarantee.
Seth Davies continues to put up numbers ever edition of the Leaderboard, with a 3rd in Aria/PokerGONLHEHigh Roller30. 5 players cashed in the 30-entry tournament, with former PNWer Ali Imsirovic at the top. Davies is still #1.
Renton, Washington’s Kao Saechao picked up 2nd place in Venetian #46 $75K GTD PLO,ahead of 319 other players (the prize pool tripled the guarantee), then made the final table at 8th in WSOP #71 PLO Bounty 8-Max at 8th That event had 860 entries. (Note: Bounties are not reported as part of tjhe earnings for the tournament.) Two final tables takes Saechao from #890 to #549 on the Leaderboard.
It was a win for Calgary’s Doug Lee, who bested 327 entries at the Autumn at Aria $40K GTD NLHE on 10 November. It appears from the payouts that there may have been a five-way deal.Lee holds at #26 on the Leaderboard.
In a blast from the past, Esther Taylor-Brady is still on the Oregon list at both Hendon Mob and WSOP. Taylor-Brady made 5th place in a field of 372 at WSOP #69 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo. Taylor-Brady remains at #28.
There were 5,252 entries in this tournament, and three players from the PNW at the final three tables. Maria McAlpin moves from #646 to #577 with a 26th-place finish. 23rd is good enough to help Adam Croffut slide up four places to #96. A newcomer to the Leaderboard are Deer Kim, whose 33rd-place is enough for #3601.
New on the Leaderboard at #813 is Matt Mayima from Seattle, who posted an impressive 2nd place in WSOP #71 PLO8 Bounty 8-Max as their first recorded live cash. The field had 860 entries. That’s a nice way to start off.
Matt Mayima
Back over at theAutumn at the Aria $40K GTD NLHE on 12 November, Burnaby, British Columbia player Alen Bakovic was 2nd in a five-way deal for their biggest score and a jump of more than nine hundred places on the Leaderboard, to #1721.
Another Canadian made the (unofficial) final table of a WSOP mixed-game event when Edmonton’s Nohad Teliani came in 9th in WSOP #72 Mixed NLHE/PLO 8-Max. Teliani gets a boost of almost two hundred places, and is now #828 on the Leaderboard. There were 856 entries in this event.
Nohad Teliani
And finally,Mans Montgomery out of Eagle, Idaho notches up four spots to #156 with a 4th-place finish in the Venetian #59 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. The prize pool beat the guarantee with 204 entries.
That’s it for this long-delayed edition of the PNW Poker Leaderboard. Next edition will get us caught up. I will report that I was playing a tournament online on the way to Hawai’i that I thought would be over by the time we had to shut off our computers but even though we weren’t in the money when they shut off the on-board wi-fi, I managed to glide into a min-cash because I had enough chips. The dream is alive!
The recent elimination of Mitchell Halverson in 15th place means one more elimination to the next pay jump – $470,000 when 13 remain. https://t.co/cZfe0GrBNK
From taking 2nd in the opening WSOP event to a top 25 finish in the tournament of all tournaments the WSOP main event shout out to you my man @JesseLonis you're a fucking gangster bro! pic.twitter.com/2pwDLk5otn
— NsaneLaneTrain, Pro poker idiot (@cmumadmikelane) November 16, 2021
Matthew Jewett had been my pick the last couple days to win the main event, so of course he’s out now, that was clearly the kiss of death … Down to the final three tables, it’s getting really good now
1/12 of the 36 players left in the WSOP Main Event are from the Pacific Northwest: Matthew Jewett (Seattle), Mitchell Halverson (West Linn, OR), and Jesse Lonis (Medford, OR). https://t.co/avRJk2YH4S
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) November 15, 2021
Day 6
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 96/6,650 players remaining. Down to 4 5 PNW players, with 3 of them in the top 20. Correction: Mitchell Halverson‘s name was left off the list because I didn’t automate this day’s results.
RANK
PLAYER
CITY
CHIPS
SEAT
11
Jung Woo
Bellevue, WA, US
7640000
Amazon/466/2
93
Fatima Nanji
Vancouver, BC, CA
935000
Amazon/478/1
83
Mitchell Halverson
West Linn, OR, US
1360000
Amazon/484/2
17
Matthew Jewett
Seattle, WA, US
6475000
Amazon/484/6
5
Jesse Lonis
Medford, OR, US
8995000
Amazon/486/7
Day 5
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 292/6,650 players remaining. Just 8 PNW players left!
RANK
PLAYER
CITY
CHIPS
SEAT
111
Jesse Lonis
Medford, OR, US
1485000
Amazon / 449 / 2
83
Mitchell Halverson
West Linn, OR, US
1767000
Amazon / 464 / 1
47
Fatima Nanji
Vancouver, BC, CA
2307000
Amazon / 465 / 8
122
Jung Woo
Bellevue, WA, US
1341000
Amazon / 466 / 1
229
Rittie Chuaprasert
Portland , OR, US
613000
Amazon / 470 / 9
156
Michael Faulkner
Viola, ID, US
1040000
Amazon / 480 / 2
265
Chad Thomsen
SURREY, BC, CA
420000
Amazon / 481 / 5
10
Matthew Jewett
Seattle, WA, US
3398000
Amazon / 488 / 8
Day 4
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 1,000/6,650 players remaining. Restart 11am Friday, 11 November. All remaining players are in the money.
RANK
PLAYER
CITY
CHIPS
SEAT
484
Brent Mutter
Poulsbo, WA, US
315000
Amazon / 426 / 3
968
Christopher Lastiwka
Edmonton, AB, CA
39000
Amazon / 434 / 2
475
Jesse Lonis
Medford, OR, US
320000
Amazon / 436 / 6
773
Bradley Crandall
Vancouver, WA, US
143000
Amazon / 443 / 1
652
Garry Bliesner
Spokane Valley, WA, US
208000
Amazon / 443 / 4
693
Dylan Collingwood
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
187000
Amazon / 453 / 2
411
Scott Davies
Vancouver, BC, CA
374000
Amazon / 454 / 4
36
Rittie Chuaprasert
Portland , OR, US
1165000
Amazon / 454 / 7
254
Fatima Nanji
Vancouver, BC, CA
545000
Amazon / 456 / 1
347
Jacob Thibodeau
Juneau, AK, US
440000
Amazon / 456 / 2
24
Matthew Jewett
Seattle, WA, US
1286000
Amazon / 457 / 3
692
Brian Foley
Poulsbo, WA, US
187000
Amazon / 461 / 4
833
Steven Josephsen
BOTHELL, WA, US
111000
Amazon / 463 / 7
414
James Frank
STAYTON, OR, US
372000
Amazon / 466 / 5
845
Ross Novak
FAIRBANKS, AK, US
107000
Amazon / 468 / 2
340
Dustin Leary
SEATTLE, WA, US
449000
Amazon / 468 / 4
71
Mitchell Halverson
West Linn, OR, US
927000
Amazon / 482 / 1
943
Dustin An
REDMOND, WA, US
56000
Amazon / 483 / 1
887
Scott Eskenazi
MERCER ISLAND, WA, US
81000
Amazon / 487 / 8
630
Andrew Smith
Mercer Island, WA, US
221000
Amazon / 488 / 7
721
William Nichols
Beaverton, OR, US
171000
Amazon / 492 / 3
580
Brad Zusman
Gresham, OR, US
248000
Amazon / 493 / 7
351
Jung Woo
Bellevue, WA, US
435000
Amazon / 494 / 4
691
Kenn Pluard
HAPPY VALLEY, OR, US
188000
Amazon / 500 / 2
829
Jonas Mackoff
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
115000
Amazon / 501 / 5
189
Michael Faulkner
Viola, ID, US
660000
Amazon / 509 / 3
854
Mike Kinney
SANDPOINT, ID, US
101000
Amazon / 510 / 6
214
Jason Mann
BURNABY, BC, CA
611000
Amazon / 513 / 6
719
Chad Thomsen
SURREY, BC, CA
172000
Amazon / 514 / 5
246
Anthony Kalanj
Port Coquitlam, BC, CA
554000
Amazon / 516 / 8
37
Kyle White
SURREY, BC, CA
1151000
Amazon / 522 / 2
386
Tuan Huynh
Boise, ID, US
399000
Amazon / 523 / 4
896
Christopher Schaler
TACOMA, WA, US
77000
Amazon / 523 / 9
Day 3
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 2,362/6,650 players remaining. Restart 11am Thursday, 11 November. 1,000 places paid.
RANK
PLAYER
CITY
CHIPS
SEAT
52
Greg Mueller
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
456500
Amazon / 400 / 4
683
Brad Zusman
GRESHAM, OR, US
207200
Amazon / 400 / 6
509
Shawn Stuart
VANCOUVER, WA, US
236700
Amazon / 402 / 2
395
Jamil Kanji
EDMONTON, AB, CA
264500
Amazon / 404 / 2
2199
Benjamin May
PORTLAND, OR, US
43000
Amazon / 405 / 8
1197
Alex Ngo
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
141800
Amazon / 417 / 4
389
Jaime Cervantes
VANCOUVER, WA, US
267500
Amazon / 418 / 8
1953
Joel Micka
EVERETT, WA, US
69000
Amazon / 421 / 1
2189
Jesse Kertland
ELLENSBURG, WA, US
43500
Amazon / 422 / 2
198
Kyle White
SURREY, BC, CA
335900
Amazon / 424 / 2
1158
Aaron Thivyanathan
RENTON, WA, US
146500
Amazon / 426 / 3
1546
Kao Saechao
PORTLAND, OR, US
108600
Amazon / 426 / 7
1311
Dan Barker
POULSBO, WA, US
131300
Amazon / 431 / 2
1611
Jonas Mackoff
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
103400
Amazon / 437 / 7
1385
Dustin An
REDMOND, WA, US
124000
Amazon / 443 / 8
2228
Blaine Neufeld
SURREY, BC, CA
41000
Amazon / 449 / 9
1475
Bradley Crandall
VANCOUVER, WA, US
116200
Amazon / 451 / 6
447
Kenn Pluard
HAPPY VALLEY, OR, US
251400
Amazon / 452 / 2
1603
Alemu Makonen
EDMONTON, AB, CA
104100
Amazon / 454 / 2
1222
Ross Novak
FAIRBANKS, AK, US
139600
Amazon / 456 / 4
741
James Frank
STAYTON, OR, US
198800
Amazon / 462 / 7
378
Jaroslaw Jaskiewicz
KAMLOOPS, BC, CA
269900
Amazon / 465 / 1
1652
Chris Back
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
98800
Amazon / 466 / 3
949
Mark Miele
VICTORIA, BC, CA
170500
Amazon / 469 / 1
183
Michael Faulkner
VIOLA, ID, US
343000
Amazon / 469 / 4
162
Filmon Ghebreegzabheir
ISSAQUAH, WA, US
360400
Amazon / 470 / 8
1601
Eric Stamey
KENT, WA, US
104200
Amazon / 473 / 2
1402
Adam Croffut
BELLINGHAM, WA, US
122600
Amazon / 476 / 2
1422
Roderick Chavez
KIRKLAND, WA, US
121000
Amazon / 476 / 6
307
Scott Eskenazi
MERCER ISLAND, WA, US
291800
Amazon / 477 / 4
2019
Shahriar Fahim
REDMOND, WA, US
62600
Amazon / 479 / 4
1248
Gabriel Post
SEATTLE, WA, US
137500
Amazon / 479 / 7
1963
Rick Whitesell
VANCOUVER, WA, US
67700
Amazon / 481 / 2
278
Mark Groner
LAKE OSWEGO, OR, US
302600
Amazon / 485 / 2
205
Jacob Thibodeau
JUNEAU, AK, US
333600
Amazon / 486 / 4
1650
Lee Markholt
EATONVILLE, WA, US
99500
Amazon / 486 / 9
1174
Ryan Thorpe
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
144500
Amazon / 488 / 1
1648
Steven Stone
LAKE STEVENS, WA, US
99800
Amazon / 490 / 8
13
Scott Davies
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
615100
Amazon / 492 / 1
455
Jason Mann
BURNABY, BC, CA
250000
Amazon / 492 / 2
874
Dylan Collingwood
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
179600
Amazon / 494 / 1
140
Matthew Jewett
SEATTLE, WA, US
367500
Amazon / 495 / 3
1095
Paul Dhaliwal
LANGLEY, BC, CA
153400
Amazon / 495 / 9
1510
Travis Yeske
EDMONTON, AB, CA
112500
Amazon / 498 / 9
582
Parminder Kumar
BELLINGHAM, WA, US
224300
Amazon / 499 / 5
1976
Melissa French
LYNNWOOD, WA, US
66700
Amazon / 500 / 7
2084
Charles Lampe
KAKTOVIK, AK, US
56100
Amazon / 503 / 2
1612
Tony Hoang
EDMONTON, AB, CA
103300
Amazon / 512 / 4
604
Nicholas Sena-Hopkins
SEATTLE, WA, US
220600
Amazon / 512 / 9
1461
Joel Nimmo
UNIVERSITY PLACE, WA, US
117700
Amazon / 514 / 6
459
Travis Preng
TACOMA, WA, US
248900
Amazon / 524 / 2
1967
Michael Letal
CALGARY, AB, CA
67500
Amazon / 528 / 2
1779
Brent Mutter
POULSBO, WA, US
87200
Amazon / 529 / 3
95
Matt Affleck
MILL CREEK, WA, US
404100
Amazon / 530 / 7
858
Jesse Lonis
MEDFORD, OR, US
181900
Amazon / 532 / 3
1407
Clemen Deng
PORTLAND, OR, US
122300
Amazon / 534 / 8
1204
Mans Montgomery
BOISE, ID, US
141200
Amazon / 535 / 3
1391
Jung Woo
BELLEVUE, WA, US
123500
Pavilion / 156 / 3
629
William Nichols
BEAVERTON, OR, US
216800
Pavilion / 161 / 4
217
Christopher Schaler
TACOMA, WA, US
326000
Pavilion / 166 / 6
1203
Ahmed Amin
SEATTLE, WA, US
141400
Pavilion / 174 / 3
2147
Brian Foley
POULSBO, WA, US
49200
Pavilion / 176 / 6
7
Cameron Mitchell
JUNEAU, AK, US
642000
Pavilion / 177 / 6
1875
Kao Chieng Saechao (OR)
PORTLAND, WA, US
76900
Pavilion / 181 / 5
2118
Jimmy Lee
EDMONTON, AB, CA
52400
Pavilion / 185 / 8
1810
Kevin Theodore
SEATTLE, WA, US
83900
Pavilion / 190 / 4
817
Fatima Nanji
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
187200
Pavilion / 194 / 6
2106
Rambo Halpern
PORTLAND, OR, US
53800
Pavilion / 198 / 3
1812
Ryan Samson
SURREY, BC, CA
83600
Pavilion / 199 / 8
496
Anthony Kalanj
PORT COQUITLAM, BC, CA
239800
Pavilion / 200 / 4
911
Garry Bliesner
SPOKANE VALLEY, WA, US
175100
Pavilion / 203 / 3
766
Richard Mullen
WHITE ROCK, BC, CA
195600
Pavilion / 207 / 6
1833
Scott Roberts
REDMOND, WA, US
81400
Pavilion / 208 / 3
1800
Robert Rasmussen
EDMONDS, WA, US
85100
Pavilion / 209 / 5
143
Tuan Huynh
BOISE, ID, US
365700
Pavilion / 209 / 7
881
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
SEATTLE, WA, US
179000
Pavilion / 210 / 8
1275
Steven Josephsen
BOTHELL, WA, US
135000
Pavilion / 212 / 9
1936
Colten Yamagishi
EDMONTON, AB, CA
70400
Pavilion / 214 / 3
1637
Adam Hendrix
ANCHORAGE, AK, US
100800
Pavilion / 226 / 4
1237
Andrew Smith
MERCER ISLAND, WA, US
138600
Pavilion / 227 / 9
592
Sterling Lopez
ANCHORAGE, AK, US
223200
Pavilion / 229 / 6
969
Christopher Lastiwka
EDMONTON, AB, CA
168100
Pavilion / 229 / 7
73
Brett Kennedy
SEATTLE, WA, US
429400
Pavilion / 230 / 8
1353
Ian Modder
NEW WESTMINSTER, BC, CA
127000
Pavilion / 239 / 2
1709
Ali Hasan
YAKIMA, WA, US
93500
Pavilion / 239 / 7
2301
Joseph Haddad
PORTLAND, OR, US
28400
Pavilion / 241 / 8
2218
Madison Bergeron
SURREY, BC, CA
41400
Pavilion / 248 / 2
1458
Chad Thomsen
SURREY, BC, CA
118000
Pavilion / 248 / 3
746
Taylor McFarland
SEATTLE, WA, US
198300
Pavilion / 248 / 7
1495
Nathan Swanson
SAMMAMISH, WA, US
113900
Pavilion / 256 / 5
12
Mitchell Halverson
WEST LINN, OR, US
617600
Pavilion / 256 / 9
1415
Jeremy Schoenberg
PORTLAND, OR, US
121300
Pavilion / 259 / 3
1814
Ronald Jacques
ONL SIGNUP-NO CITY, BC, CA
83500
Pavilion / 259 / 4
85
Dustin Leary
SEATTLE, WA, US
410000
Pavilion / 260 / 2
81
Rittie Chuaprasert
PORTLAND , OR, US
414000
Pavilion / 268 / 1
2309
Matthew Letzring
SOLDOTNA, AK, US
27500
Pavilion / 271 / 7
764
Whitney Langwell
EUGENE, OR, US
195600
Pavilion / 293 / 1
1367
Elliot Smith
RICHMOND, BC, CA
125700
Pavilion / 299 / 1
2150
Matthew Schiavo
SEATTLE, WA, US
48700
Pavilion / 300 / 2
Day 2CEF
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 1,810/2,443 players total. Restart 11am Wednesday, 10 November.
RANK
PLAYER
CITY
CHIPS
SEAT
1705
Monte George
Chattaroy, WA, US
20600
Amazon / 401 / 6
513
Joseph Beltran
Pasco, WA, US
100200
Amazon / 405 / 4
1668
Anthony Mar
NORTH VANCOUVER, BC, CA
23200
Amazon / 409 / 9
1182
Brian Foley
Poulsbo, WA, US
55700
Amazon / 412 / 8
1606
Rodolfo Martinez
Seattle, WA, US
29000
Amazon / 416 / 7
809
Paul Dhaliwal
Langley, BC, CA
77800
Amazon / 419 / 6
594
Brad Zusman
Gresham, OR, US
94100
Amazon / 420 / 9
447
Kao Saetern
PORTLAND, OR, US
105900
Amazon / 426 / 6
1784
Christopher Hoke
Anchorage, AK, US
10700
Amazon / 430 / 2
1655
Harsukhpaul Sangha
SURREY, BC, CA
24900
Amazon / 432 / 2
1675
Scott Roberts
Redmond, WA, US
22500
Amazon / 437 / 7
5
Kenn Pluard
HAPPY VALLEY, OR, US
307600
Amazon / 438 / 2
888
David Shim
Onl Signup-No City, WA, US
72200
Amazon / 438 / 5
1032
Jonas Mackoff
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
63800
Amazon / 441 / 3
165
Brett Kennedy
Seattle, WA, US
150100
Amazon / 444 / 6
866
Jesse Lonis
Medford, OR, US
73700
Amazon / 446 / 1
312
Madison Bergeron
SURREY, BC, CA
122000
Amazon / 448 / 4
628
Stephen Johnson
Eugene, OR, US
91900
Amazon / 457 / 9
697
Jeffrey Farnes
Dallas, OR, US
86600
Amazon / 459 / 1
68
Dustin Leary
SEATTLE, WA, US
185000
Amazon / 459 / 6
1248
Taylor McFarland
SEATTLE, WA, US
52000
Amazon / 461 / 4
1090
Vikas Sondhi
Bellingham, WA, US
60500
Amazon / 465 / 3
797
Gary Bain
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
78500
Amazon / 465 / 6
951
Brent Mutter
Poulsbo, WA, US
69200
Amazon / 470 / 4
1160
Kevin MacPhee
COEUR D ALENE, ID, US
57400
Amazon / 472 / 2
1660
Kao Saechao
Portland, OR, US
24100
Amazon / 472 / 6
821
Timothy Gundrum
Sammamish, WA, US
76700
Amazon / 478 / 3
1648
Jonathan Yueh
BURNABY, BC, CA
25900
Amazon / 478 / 6
231
Matthew Jewett
Seattle, WA, US
136200
Amazon / 480 / 3
1677
Chris Nye
Onl Signup-No City, WA, US
22400
Amazon / 483 / 7
1486
Andrew Doan
Marysville, WA, US
39000
Amazon / 485 / 4
130
Norman Shapiro
WEST VANCOUVER, BC, CA
159200
Amazon / 486 / 1
1323
James Frank
STAYTON, OR, US
48000
Amazon / 487 / 2
846
Ian Modder
New Westminster, BC, CA
75100
Amazon / 488 / 8
476
Matthew Schiavo
SEATTLE, WA, US
102800
Amazon / 489 / 2
1762
Bradley Crandall
Vancouver, WA, US
14600
Amazon / 493 / 9
18
Travis Preng
Tacoma, WA, US
232800
Amazon / 496 / 1
1036
Darshan Kolachoor
Bellevue, WA, US
63400
Amazon / 497 / 4
1358
Donald Thompson
OLYMPIA, WA, US
46100
Amazon / 497 / 8
1427
Sarah Pluard
HAPPY VALLEY, OR, US
42100
Amazon / 501 / 3
1207
Christopher Schaler
TACOMA, WA, US
54300
Amazon / 501 / 4
1141
Sean Stevens
Coquitlam, BC, CA
58000
Amazon / 501 / 9
1553
Joel Nimmo
University Place, WA, US
34000
Amazon / 502 / 2
1361
Robert Mierzejewski
Preston, ID, US
46000
Amazon / 503 / 7
341
Mark Groner
LAKE OSWEGO, OR, US
118200
Amazon / 505 / 5
1644
John Stauffer
Shoreline, WA, US
26100
Amazon / 506 / 5
455
Joel Micka
EVERETT, WA, US
105000
Amazon / 510 / 9
460
Jacob Thibodeau
Juneau, AK, US
104300
Amazon / 513 / 7
181
Dustin An
REDMOND, WA, US
145000
Amazon / 514 / 9
368
Steven Stone
Lake Stevens, WA, US
114800
Amazon / 518 / 3
617
Filmon Ghebreegzabheir
Issaquah, WA, US
92900
Amazon / 519 / 6
1693
Ryan Stoker
Spokane, WA, US
21200
Amazon / 521 / 1
1582
Noah Bronstein
Bellevue, WA, US
30500
Amazon / 527 / 3
1479
Benjamin Harrison
Lake Oswego, OR, US
39300
Amazon / 534 / 7
1789
Norman Nelson
Burlington, WA, US
9500
Pavilion / 154 / 3
1114
Rajendra Ajmani
Bellevue, WA, US
59100
Pavilion / 156 / 7
1746
Barry Curran
Onl Signup-No City, BC, CA
16100
Pavilion / 169 / 5
1195
Alex Ngo
Vancouver, BC, CA
55200
Pavilion / 172 / 3
1749
Marco Zaurrini
Burnaby, BC, CA
15800
Pavilion / 173 / 7
1003
Kyle White
SURREY, BC, CA
66000
Pavilion / 180 / 7
348
Jason Mann
BURNABY, BC, CA
117400
Pavilion / 184 / 8
762
Mike Kinney
SANDPOINT, ID, US
81100
Pavilion / 185 / 3
1098
Jeffrey Mitseff
PORTLAND, OR, US
60000
Pavilion / 186 / 7
1709
Dien Le
Bellevue, WA, US
20400
Pavilion / 187 / 8
1802
Cameron Mitchell
Juneau, AK, US
1
Pavilion / 193 / 3
338
Vinny Ta
Wenatchee, WA, US
118800
Pavilion / 196 / 1
1569
Allen Nielson
MERCER ISLAND, WA, US
32200
Pavilion / 198 / 8
1435
Nicolas Halvorson
Vaughn, WA, US
41700
Pavilion / 206 / 3
956
Chad Thomsen
SURREY, BC, CA
69000
Pavilion / 206 / 4
136
Christopher Hull
Vancouver, WA, US
157400
Pavilion / 210 / 1
501
Shawn Stuart
Vancouver, WA, US
101300
Pavilion / 210 / 8
1504
Armand Alvarado
PORTLAND, OR, US
37600
Pavilion / 210 / 9
677
Shawn Buchanan
ABBOTSFORD, BC, CA
88800
Pavilion / 212 / 1
1637
William Tinoco
Eugene, OR, US
26600
Pavilion / 213 / 5
1309
Gennadiy Dvosis
BELLEVUE, WA, US
48900
Pavilion / 215 / 5
398
Andrew Smith
Mercer Island, WA, US
111700
Pavilion / 218 / 1
346
Jaroslaw Jaskiewicz
KAMLOOPS, BC, CA
117500
Pavilion / 224 / 8
234
Scott Eskenazi
MERCER ISLAND, WA, US
136000
Pavilion / 254 / 6
1495
Joseph Taylor
GRAHAM, WA, US
38200
Pavilion / 254 / 9
19
Jung Woo
Bellevue, WA, US
231900
Pavilion / 268 / 4
Day 2ABD End of Day
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 1,440/2,900 players total. Restart 11am Thursday, 11 November. The rank column for the “by seat” listing was not accurate for chip rank.
PLAYER
CITY
CHIPS
SEAT
Greg Mueller
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
456500
Amazon / 400 / 4
Jamil Kanji
Edmonton, AB, CA
264500
Amazon / 404 / 2
Benjamin May
PORTLAND, OR, US
43000
Amazon / 405 / 8
Jaime Cervantes
Vancouver, WA, US
267500
Amazon / 417 / 8
Jesse Kertland
Ellensburg, WA, US
43500
Amazon / 422 / 2
Aaron Thivyanathan
Renton, WA, US
146500
Amazon / 426 / 3
Dan Barker
POULSBO, WA, US
131300
Amazon / 431 / 2
Blaine Neufeld
Surrey, BC, CA
41000
Amazon / 449 / 9
Ross Novak
FAIRBANKS, AK, US
139600
Amazon / 456 / 4
Mark Miele
Victoria, BC, CA
170500
Amazon / 469 / 1
Michael Faulkner
Viola, ID, US
343000
Amazon / 469 / 4
Eric Stamey
KENT, WA, US
104200
Amazon / 473 / 2
Adam Croffut
BELLINGHAM, WA, US
122600
Amazon / 476 / 2
Roderick Chavez
KIRKLAND, WA, US
121000
Amazon / 476 / 6
Shahriar Fahim
REDMOND, WA, US
62600
Amazon / 479 / 4
Gabriel Post
SEATTLE, WA, US
137500
Amazon / 479 / 7
Rick Whitesell
Vancouver, WA, US
67700
Amazon / 481 / 2
Lee Markholt
EATONVILLE, WA, US
99500
Amazon / 486 / 9
Ryan Thorpe
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
144500
Amazon / 488 / 1
Scott Davies
Vancouver, BC, CA
615100
Amazon / 492 / 1
Dylan Collingwood
VANCOUVER, BC, CA
179600
Amazon / 494 / 1
Parminder Kumar
Bellingham, WA, US
224300
Amazon / 499 / 5
Melissa French
Lynnwood, WA, US
66700
Amazon / 500 / 7
Charles Lampe
Kaktovik, AK, US
56100
Amazon / 503 / 2
Tony Hoang
EDMONTON, AB, CA
103300
Amazon / 512 / 4
Nicholas Sena-Hopkins
SEATTLE, WA, US
220600
Amazon / 512 / 9
Matt Affleck
MILL CREEK, WA, US
404100
Amazon / 530 / 7
Clemen Deng
Portland, OR, US
122300
Amazon / 534 / 8
William Nichols
Beaverton, OR, US
216800
Pavilion / 161 / 4
Ahmed Amin
Seattle, WA, US
141400
Pavilion / 174 / 3
Jimmy Lee
Edmonton, AB, CA
52400
Pavilion / 185 / 8
Kevin Theodore
Seattle, WA, US
83900
Pavilion / 190 / 4
Fatima Nanji
Vancouver, BC, CA
187200
Pavilion / 194 / 6
Rambo Halpern
Portland, OR, US
53800
Pavilion / 198 / 3
Ryan Samson
SURREY, BC, CA
83600
Pavilion / 199 / 8
Anthony Kalanj
Port Coquitlam, BC, CA
239800
Pavilion / 200 / 4
Garry Bliesner
Spokane Valley, WA, US
175100
Pavilion / 203 / 3
Richard Mullen
White Rock, BC, CA
195600
Pavilion / 207 / 6
Robert Rasmussen
EDMONDS, WA, US
85100
Pavilion / 209 / 5
Tuan Huynh
Boise, ID, US
365700
Pavilion / 209 / 7
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
SEATTLE, WA, US
179000
Pavilion / 210 / 8
Steven Josephsen
BOTHELL, WA, US
135000
Pavilion / 212 / 9
Colten Yamagishi
Edmonton, AB, CA
70400
Pavilion / 214 / 3
Adam Hendrix
Anchorage, AK, US
100800
Pavilion / 226 / 4
Sterling Lopez
Anchorage, AK, US
223200
Pavilion / 229 / 6
Christopher Lastiwka
Edmonton, AB, CA
168100
Pavilion / 229 / 7
Ali Hasan
Yakima, WA, US
93500
Pavilion / 239 / 7
Joseph Haddad
PORTLAND, OR, US
28400
Pavilion / 241 / 8
Nathan Swanson
Sammamish, WA, US
113900
Pavilion / 256 / 5
Mitchell Halverson
West Linn, OR, US
617600
Pavilion / 256 / 9
Jeremy Schoenberg
PORTLAND, OR, US
121300
Pavilion / 259 / 3
Ronald Jacques
Onl Signup-No City, BC, CA
83500
Pavilion / 259 / 4
Rittie Chuaprasert
Portland , OR, US
414000
Pavilion / 268 / 1
Matthew Letzring
SOLDOTNA, AK, US
27500
Pavilion / 271 / 7
Elliot Smith
RICHMOND, BC, CA
125700
Pavilion / 299 / 1
Day 2ABD
Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta) players by seat. 2,893/3,913 players total. Restart 11am Tuesday, 9 November.
Is it just me? Every time I walk past this in the hall on the way to the WSOP, I don’t see a patio chair turned into wall art as much as I see an old man’s walker, crushed under an SUV on Valley View trying to get across to one of the Subways in the Gold Coast, covered in colored crepe paper and stuck up to hide the evidence in plain sight.
I took another shot at the 9am mega-satellite on Friday, ending up firing two bullets because the field got to 38 (three full $1500 payouts and one $1200), but didn’t manage to ever get anything going (hence the second bullet).
I debated playing some single-table-satellites, but since I hadn’t been able to connect up with the person I probably would have sold the lammers to (I cannot imagine myself trying to hustle lammers to people in line, even in a full WSOP; I just don’t have the ‘strike-up-a-conversation-with-strangers’ gene) I decided to wait until the $250 Deepstack at 1pm, which has been getting a couple hundred entries the past week.
I made some call in the late morning, then headed down to the All-American Bar & Grill for a salad before I headed in to Pavilion. It was a little after the 1pm start time by then, but I wasn’t too worried, since the levels were 30 minutes. But even though the line didn’t even extend from the satellite cages all the way to the central aisle, it wasn’t moving at all, at first. There were maybe 20 people in front of me and three windows open, but I stood in the same place for a long time. It was nearly. Half hour before I was seated at the table. And I only lasted about 25 minutes, loving a couple chunky hands, then raising K♣J♠ in middle position, getting a couple calls, then seeing a 9x8x7x flop and Qx turn and getting my stack all in and called by 9x9x. Then, of course, Qx on the river.
That was the last tournament poker for me for this trip. I figured that I would go pick up my media credentials, mostly to add them to the collection, and went back to the room to rest up from the excitement of my HORSE min-cash. I saw that I now had a WSOP.com player page and my Hendon Mob profile has the update already, Sadly, it’s not enough to get my on the next installment of the PNW Poker Leaderboard.
I wandered back down to the Amazon room and ran into Kevmath (again, because he’d been one of just five people—including myself—in the drastically-reduced media room earlier) and we firmed up our connections for getting together later. The final two tables of the HORSE tournament were running, and I very much wanted to rail PNW player Kao “Flexx” Saechao, who was second in chips at the time to eventual champ Anthony Zinno (who I’d won a pot from earlier in the tournament, I will remind everyone from now on), but I contented myself with harassing PokerNews because they had Oregon’s Kao Saechao linked in their player profile.
DougChase @PokerNews, I think the wrong profile may be linked for Kao Saechao in the report below. As @HoldemMedia_Dan will attest, there are poker players by that name in all three West Coast states, and the Kao in the $1500 HORSE is from Washington.https://t.co/bnbe1Mp0Dv
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) October 15, 2021
No thanks for that, but they did fix it not long afterward. They might just have noticed that the guy in the player profile looked nothing like the guy at the table. Flexx made 4th place, so great congratulations to him, and he will appear in the Leaderboard. Now wee just need Portland Meadows—named after a horse-racing track—to put on some HORSE tournaments to make Portland the home of Big O and HORSE!
Picked up some beer for Kevmath, went back to the room for a while, then he DMed me to let me know it would be a bit later than he’d expected because of a big news thing, which turned out to be he last-minute announcement of two more day 1s for the Main Event and a reshuffling of the rest of the schedule, to accommodate the relaxation of COVID travel restrictions to the US. He made it about two hours later than he’d originally expected (and I left him waiting outside he door for five minutes because I didn’t see his first couple of DMs, my apologies, Kevin), and we watched some of the endgame of the $5K NLHE 6-Max, from 3-handed until just about the time it ended in real life (though not on the 60-minute PokerGO delay feed) while I got to hear some details of how he came to play next week’s Turbo Bounty bracelet event, and other insights into the weird niche he’s carved out for himself as poker’s social media ganglion.
This isn’t (hopefully) going to be a long post; it’s a little before 8:30am as I’m typing this, hoping I’ll get sleepy by staring at the screen, but I’ve been up for over an hour and I didn’t get to sleep until 4.
Yesterday started off with me popping over to Denny’s catty-corner from the Rio. It seems like, despite the wide-open rep of Las Vegas—many of the restaurants in the casino complex are shuttered—at least during the weekdays—which has led to scenes like this.
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) October 14, 2021
Denny’s, on the other hand, was busy and considerably less expensive than anything I’d seen on the menus at the Rio. All you have to do is take your life into your hands by walking across both Flamingo and Valley View each direction during morning rush hour to get there.
First order of the day was to get registered for Event #196 $180 NLHE Turbo Mega Satellite. I had my three $500 lammers from the evening before, but I was hoping to pick up another $1500 in lammers from this satellite. I’m starting to think my decision to grind satellites in the COVID era was -EV. By the end of registration, only 18 players had joined in, which meat just one full payout and one of two lamps and $200 cash. I had one AxQx hand get all in against AxJx and lose, which mostly wiped me out an I ended up fifth. The other players were discussing how to potentially chop it up as I picked up my bag, while the TD pretended something on the far wall of the Pavilion room was interesting.
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) October 13, 2021
That took a couple hours. It was time to make a decision about the path of my next three days in Vegas. I was (discounting expenses and treating my lammers as actual dollars) slightly ahead on the trip after the first day. Do I a) buy into the HORSE tournament? or b) use the lammers for the bulk of three more $580 mega satellites? With the number of players the mega were getting, I wasn’t sure how many of those were going to be profitable for me—I really prefer the larger satellite fields—and they could mean forgoing the two other bracelet events I was interested in.
As it happened, my passions took the lead and I dropped my lammers at the cage to register for HORSE.
Got the winner of the 2016 $1500 HORSE event I covered as a live reporter sitting next to me in the 2021 $1500 HORSE
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) October 13, 2021
My first table in the HORSE tournament couldn’t have had a better location. Though it also had Ian Johns in the seat next to me. It seemed like several other players there were from Washington state, as well. The next table wasn’t so good, in the ass-end of the Tan section of Amazon with bad lighting that made it difficult for the older players—not me, of course—to see the stud variant up cards at the other end of the table. Ran into some serious hardships and was down to 7k from 25k at one point before a phenomenal O8 segment took me up over starting stack and nearly 40k.
Got moved after a couple hours to a table with better lighting but also Alan Kessler. I lost the first hand I played there (to him) and then a (for me) massive hand where I had seven hearts in stud and I had to call off on the river when he raised me with his rivered boat. That stung. I did manage to pull off a flush that held up against Anthony Zinno to recover a bit.
Got moved to a table with Barry Greenstein and was dealt 2♦3♦4♦ in Razz, which got me excited. Then I got 2 black kings, which took some of the edge off. At this point, we were nearing the final three levels of play, which is still two hours before bagging, but I’d made it past the ed of registration, and if I could hang on with my <10 big bet stack, I might be able to make Day 2.
Attendance was down a bit for this event. There were 751 entries in 2019 and just 594 yesterday, which is a full 20% drop. I’m guessing that’s probably worse for someone like myself, because most of the people who aren’t showing up are the more casual HORSE players (like me).
Ran into Joe Brandenberg in the halls, and Jeff Mitseff at the next table at the end of the night. We got the “five hands” notice from the floor just as we headed into the Razz round. I think I managed to stay out of most of those hands.
Anyway, my table draw is interesting. Felipe Ramos is #3 in live tournament earnings in Brazil. Ron Ware runs the Mixed Game Poker in Las Vegas group on Facebook.
After we bagged up, I needed to find some food. If there was anything open at the Rio during the day, it wasn’t open at 2:15am. I headed across to Ping Pang Pong (crossing Valley View in the dark, yeek!) and managed to wolf down my first food since breakfast. This hibernation fat is good for something!
Going to try to make the day last as long as I can! Usually I change out the card cover each time I cash, I’ve got to decide whether making Day 2 of my first WSOP bracelet event is significant enough to swap out.
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am not a professional poker player. The last bracelet event I played at the World Series of Poker was in 2013. I’ve only ever played two (well, now three) bracelet events, and they were back when the WSOP first introduced $1,000 events. This year, I sunk even lower and entered a $600 bracelet event.
It’s been a long haul, folks, Years ago, I’d heard about folks grinding satellites, and even though I felt I was decent at playing them, I’d never had the discipline to sit down and just do it. So many tournaments in the summer (or anytime I was likely to be going to Vegas), so many variations. Never mind that I’d done reasonably well in the Ignition Casino Thousandaire Makers (only to blow the money I made on MTTs). Never mind that I had Dara O’Kearney’s Poker Satellite Strategy on my Kindle mostly unread.
I did put my plan into action when I came down in 2018, but bricked out. In 2019, when I ‘retired’ from poker, I had to cancel the trip at the last minute because of work, and you know what happened to 2020. So I really wanted to take advantage of this revival year—and experience a WSOP that didn’t melt me when I walked outdoors.
I made my plans as soon as the schedule was announced, centering the trip around three bracelet events: #24 $600 PLO 8-Max, #27 $1500 HORSE, and #28 $1000 PLO 8-Max. Plus the usual $180 mega satellites and the daily $580 mega satellite. I figured either this WSOP would be one of the easiest (with so many players choosing not to or unable to travel to the US) or really hard (with the people who were dedicated to making it to the WSOP being concentrated with pros).
Up at 4am to catch the first flight to Vegas today. Disregard the enticing $250 offers from the airline to give up my seat for a later flight—we’re on a schedule, man!
Plane lands around 8:30. Now, spite months of mental preparation for this trip, I made a very essential error: fucking Columbus Day (I’m using that instead of Indigenous Peoples’ Day because this is a comment about how the day screwed me over). I wasn’t planning to travel with a huge wad of money, just enough to get me through the first day or so, but Friday was a bitch and Saturday I had stuff to do around the house, I old just pick up my cash from the bank on Monday, right? Did I remember that banks were going o be closed on Monday? No. And even the cheap-ass PLO game was more than an ATM puts out.
So, when I get to Las Vegas, I need to get to a branch of my bank, of which there are a number in town, one just a couple miles from the airport. It even opens at 9. I get there a quarter hour before it opens and it’s a cubbyhole inside the student union at UNLV. I just hope it has money.
Branch opens up, the very nice branch assistant tells me my specific ask is no problem, until they get to the part where they give me the money and they tell me that there’s some weird thing about the way the business account I have had for my sole proprietorship for more than a quarter of a century is set up in their system and I’m somehow not the “owner” of the account. Fie on you, Christopher Columbus! Anyway, it’s resolved by me transferring the amount I need to my linked personal account and taking it out of there. I was reminded that when I had some a paycheck—from Caesar’s Entertainment, one of the largest employers here—to my account a few years ago, one of the branches in a grocery store couldn’t take my deposit without the branch manager being there, which they were not. It was not, dear reader, a large sum of money.
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) October 12, 2021
The Rio at 9:30 this morning was quiet. Hardly any line for the registration cage. Mid-week mornings are good. I was bought in an hour before the event and kicked around. It was surprising to see what’s operating next what’s not. There were a fe people sitting at the tables inside Starbucks, but the lights were off and I didn’t see anyone behind the counter. That’s fine, I don’t drink coffee except socially.
So, how’d my first bracelet event in eight years go? Not so great. I was in a steady drift down for most of my time in the tournament, with a couple of players—one at the far end of the table and one just to my left—picking off chips. I looked at their stacks a couple of times before anyone had been knocked off the table and was a bit puzzled at where they’d all come from, I’d lost a lot but not that many, and it seemed like other people had more than me, too. I shrank down to less than a fifth of the 30k starting stack over the first four levels, then suddenly caught some fire in Level 5.
AA44 late pot over a raise and call does not go well. KKxx hits the flop and a wrap takes it with a straight. Should have got away on the flop even though I would have been back down to 20k. pic.twitter.com/PmSHjno5gb
— Poker “Socially and Emotionally Distant 2†Mutant (@pokermutant) October 12, 2021
Our little corner of the Brasilia room didn’t see any water service for a couple hours. I was damned if I was paying for some other drink. I wanted my 10oz/$1 water. Maybe the lack of hydration was messing with my game.
My stack got up to almost where it had started three-and-a-half hours before before I potted with a rainbow AA44, got called by two players, then shoved on a KQx flop where I ought to have known I was beat. Both players shoved, one with an open-ended draw and the other with a set of kings and the wrap made a king-high straight.
So naturally, instead of looking for something t eat or drink (all I’d had since the night before was airplane biscotti, which was pretty good), I went back to the reg cage to get into the $580 mega. Now the lines were a bit longer, it took about 40 minutes to get my ticket, even though the line—full of anxious PLO re-entries—didn’t reach the main hall. It’s almost enough to make me go sign up with Fastrac, which I was discussing with a couple of the folks in line behind me, only to have someone who’d just signed up have some serious frustrations with the machine outside registration.
So I got to the mega almost 90 minutes in, with 10k of chips and 400/800/800 blinds. Just the way I like to burn $580. This went a to better, even though there were a couple of large stacks. I was one of the later entries but there were only 24 by the end of registration, which was going to yield two payouts of $5k in lammer chips and one of $2k.
I was playing tight (12bb!) then less than half an hour in I had to call with AK and the guy who’d been opening a bit too much a little sheepishly turned over Q2 after raising 10x. The the big stack on my right raised a hand and I caught trip 9s on a flop with T♠9♠ which knocked him out. So I had a quarter of the chips as we went into a break and consolidated to a table of 9.
But then work interrupted. Something back home att the job was messed up. It was probably my fault, and I’m getting calls from the client who I don’t usually talk to, what with me being a worker grunt and not the face of the enterprise. I faltered and raised Q♠J♠, then called an all-in from a player at the other end of the table, who had enough to halve my stack, which was more than everyone else, but not especially deep.
The highlight of the evening was probably when I called with KxQx against an all-in from a two-time bracelet winner (someone I should have recognized, but it’s been a few years since it was my job to know these guys) and cracked his Ax hand. That wasn’t long before he shoved a small stack with tens T♠T♣, got called by T♥9♥ and the board ran out 4♠8♣4♥4♣4♦ for a chopped pot, which must just have been crushing, even to a pro.
We got down to 4 players, on the bubble and K, the player on my left and I were tied at about 37k, less than 10bb. I was getting the best of it, because the other old man at the table, P, gave me a couple walks and K wasn’t getting that, so he got a little shorter than me. T, the player with the most chips, proposed a chop, with him taking the full $5K, and P and myself passing a lammer chip each to K. Who am I to turn down a deal that pus me in the red for the day (not counting other expenses.
Everyone agreed to the deal, we went through the process to get out lammers, and that’s how I got my first-ever payout at the WSOP, though it’s not technically money. All for of us waved to the payout room together, T got his chips first, P went up to the window, but even though I had to wait in line for a little to get my paperwork and payout, P was still at the window. Both T and I hung around to make sure K got his other chip (I’d flipped him one right after I got them), and P paid off his part in casino chips for some reason. Everyone satisfied (except for the part where I blew $3500 in equity) we headed our separate ways. I got checked in, got some fluids, and had a nice pork-fried rice.
It was five months ago today that I playedmy last hand of live poker, the longest gap in my live play since I started playing home games with a group of guys my cousin’s husband introduced me to back in 2007. And that last live session was with what remains of the same group, which has been whittled down considerably from the days when we regularly needed two tables. Maybe I drove them away…
It’s not that live poker hasn’t come back to Portland, albeit in a somewhat reduced fashion. Both of the largest poker rooms in the city and state—Final TableandPortland Meadows—are open, and a number of the smaller rooms have games running. I haven’t partaken myself, as I’ve been on the deck for helping out some folks with medical issues and can’t really afford an accidental exposure because of my love for poker.
Without any live tournaments, the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard has been dead. I’d been hoping to have something to report after the WSOP.com online replacement for the World Series of Poker’s 50th anniversary (yes, you read that right, last year was the 50th WSOP but this would have been the 50th anniversary), but the last event was over a week ago and they’re apparently not adding them to the database.
So, all I have left is me.
I’ve played a wider variety of online the past five months than I had in a long time. I started off on my tried and true Ignition Casino. I didn’t have a lot of cash left there but the first NLHE Jackpot Sit-n-Go I played after lockdown went well, and I got another one that day, but meanwhile dropped five times my winnings in a $25K GTD, a PLO Turbo, and a 6-Max Turbo. I finished out march with a few small Jackpots.
Portland Meadows—which had just reopened before Oregon locked down—had a deal with the Bitcoin-only Nitrogen Sports (home of The Poker Guys). I bought some Bitcoin and transferred it to Nitrogen to play a few of the Meadows-branded events, busting out mid-field in the first couple. Then I started playing their micro stakes PLO cash games and did fantastic, with one of them putting me up 850bb in about 20 minutes. Of course, I promptly booked a session with a loss of 700bb. Then another for nearly 1500bb. Thankfully, those were both smaller stakes than the win, but still.
Meanwhile, Kheang Tang convinced me to play part of the America’s Cardroom High Five series. I played a $30K GTD PLO8, $40K GTD NLHE, and a $1K GTD Stud8 without even getting into the top half of the field.
The cash games for me on Nitrogen were still going well, but the tournaments were a complete bust. Back on ACR. I min-cashed a $20K PLO8 after being in the top 5 for a good section of the tournament. April ended with me still cashless in tournaments at Nitrogen and a couple of losing PLO sessions in a row depleted my balance there. I made the final table of a 45-player PLO tournament at ACR, but a rebuy made me just break-even.
I got back over to Ignition on May Day, intending to focus on 6-Max and satellites. It didn’t go so well. Booked a couple of profits at 2¢ PLO cash, but it was just losses in satellites, PLO Turbo tournaments, and 6-Max for over a week before I cashed in even a $2 Jackpot SnG. Three weeks and more than 20 tournaments in, I finally picked up an MTT cash with 60/851 in a $30K GTD. Not much, but something.
Meanwhile, I was also plugging away on ACR. Apart from a satellite ticket and a negligible profit in a $500 GTD 6-Max, that was going nowhere.
Near the end of the month, I psigned up with Big Dog Pokerthrough Jeremy Harkin, so I could try my hand at Big O during a weekend series they were running. Tried my hand at four tournaments and a few cash games and let’s just say I’m not as good at the game as I used to be back in the Portland Players Club days. And that was never that good.
My ACR play petered off in early June along with the rest of the money in my account. I did get to play one last Stud cash session, which is something Ignition doesn’t have.
Over on Ignition, I had a run of 0.1/0.25 PLO cash sessions that gave me hope, with profits in 10 out of 15, but other than that: nada. I played almost nothing the last third of the month, between my last session on Big Dog and my last on ACR. After July 1, it was Ignition and only Ignition.
Not that that was going all that well.
I had a couple min-cashes (142/1095 in a $10K GTD and 23/155 in a 6-Max Turbo) but many more bustos, mostly sticking to 6-Max, and PLO/PLO8. Then things started to turn around after the middle of the month. 11/175 in the nightly $44 buyin 6-Max. A satellite ticket to their summer series $10K GTD O8 (where I got 14/145). Another min in a $3K GTD Turbo, and 2/176 in the 6Max, with only two busts in-between (and one of those was a $250K GTD I’d satellited into).
I busted a couple of tournaments, cashed 6/215 in a $5K PLO8, busted a couple more and won a satellite into a $35K GTD 6-Max (busted), had a couple more bust days, then played two tournaments simultaneously (which I rarely do because I am old and slow), making the final tables of both.
— Poker “Socially AND Emotionally Distant†Mutant (@pokermutant) August 5, 2020
A min-cash with rebuy meant a small loss in my first-ever NLHE Ante Up tournament (do not late-reg one of these things when you get just 12bb to start).
I noticed the last couple of Thursdays there are multiple 6-Max tournaments to lay during the series. I was considering playing all three the other day, but two of them start before I’m off of work. I wanted to sit in the living room so I could chat with my wife, so I ended up just playing the $215 buy-in because of the size of my laptop screen (if I’d been in the office, I would have used the big computer). This led to a major screw-up.
I got into a confrontation early in the game and lost a third of my chips, then drifted down further to 1/3 of the starting stack. It seems like I was down there for a long time, but looking at the hand history, it seems like I managed to recover back to a starting stack by the end of the first hour.
Nearing the end of the re-entry period, the player came in on my right with 75bb and proceeded to shove over nearly every raise made by another player. He shoved the second hand he was dealt at the table. He shoved the third hand with A♦J♣ and went down to 60bb when he doubled up a pair of tens. He 6x 3-bet the next hand. Hand 4, he doubled up another player shoving 9♦8♠ and getting called by A♦Q♥. Down to 30bb, he shoved hands 5, 6, and 7.
On hand 8, he open-shoved from the button and I called with T♠K♣, exposing his Q♠8♥. He doubled me up that time, and I was up to 40bb. He was down to 12.
This did not stop the insanity, however. The next hand there was an UTG min-raise from a 35bb, and the maniac shoved with 7♦5♥. The original raiser called with T♠Q♦ and the maniac doubled back to 40bb.
He took a hand off, but did it again, then just limped into my BB (and won a small pot), shoved over a 4bb raise, stayed out of a hand where I doubled up to 66bb, and at least slowed down a bit.
Which may have been why I took my eye off the ball at the wrong time. Blinds were up to 600/1200/120. There were only four players at the table at the moment, with a little over 100 left and about half of us getting paid. I was well-situated with almost 75bb which put me in the top 10 at the time. The maniac was at 40bb. I had 4♠Q♠ in the BB, which I might call a small raise with but I had no real intention of playing. The button (22bb) min-raised, and the maniac in SB shoved and—not seeing the all-in—I called. Button folded and I was up against 9♣8♣ Racing, but a nine and a club on the flop turned into a club couch by the river and nw the maniac had almost 100K and I was well out of the top 10.
My last hand against the maniac was just 5 hands later when he open-shoved SB with 9♣K♦ against my J♥K♠ and again hit a nine on the flop.
I did a re-entry but lost a race on my first hand and was down to 1.5bb. Quadrupled up on my second hand. My last hand, I had A♠7♣ and 4bb in the BB, a big stack shoved 2♥4♥, and I called. He got a full house.
Everybody’s always asking
Why do what I do
I don’t gamble ’cuz I want to win, boys
I gamble ’cuz I need to lose
This was the year I didn’t go to Vegas.
I announced last fall that I was retiring from poker at the end of 2018, then got a lot of funny looks from people when I started showing up at tournaments three weejs after I retired. It wasn’t ever supposed to be an absolute thing, but I did scale back my poker playing to spend more time with the family, specifically, my wife, who retired on January 1st. And I did.
I played 95 live tournaments in 2018, and only 53 in 2019. There was a starker comparison in the first half of each year, because in 2019 I played only 14 live tournaments between January and June, where I’d played 37 in 2018. Online, I was still fairly active, with 388 tournaments in 2018 only going down to 306 in 2019, but half of the 2019 tournaments were Jackpot Sit-and-Gos, hyper-turbo, 3-player tournaments that tend to last less than 10 minutes, so they weren’t exactly eating up the time an MTT would. 3% ROI playing mostly $7 entries but also some $2, $15, and $20 games. Never saw a jackpot higher than 5x the buy-in.
After playing 85 of the nightly Thousandaire Makertournaments on Ignition Poker last year, I entered 16 Thousandaire Makers in 2019 (cashed 2, for a -14% ROI).
I had my second-largest career cash ($10K) in this first year of my retirement, which—at the end of November—had me as #28 on the Poker Media Power Rankings, right between two of the actual poker journalists I worked with at the World Series two years ago.
In 2018, I made two brief trips too Las Vegas—in the summer and just before New Year’s, but I didn’t leave the Northwest at all (for poker) in 2019. My first experience as a player at the World Series of Poker was in 2012, I was down for short periods at least once during the summer each year until 2018 (and for a pretty long period in 2016) even when I wasn’t playing a WSOP event); now that’s retired.
Just one third the number of tournaments at FinalTable this year (13 vs. 41 in 2018), even though it was the final year of my free door fees there (part of the payment for doing their web site a couple of years back, and a real steal in no-rake Portland). I played a couple more tournaments this year at Portland Meadows (14 in 2019 vs. 11 in 2018) because of the Grand Finale series.
You might think that the second-best career cash would be my best ROI in a tournament this year, but at 1800%, that was just over half the ROI from an Ignition $4K GTD NLHE Turbo where I took 4th of 471, for ROI of 3100%. I had five other tournaments where I cashed for more than a 1000% ROI.
Wins this year included a 66-player Ignition $500 GTD PLO8 Turbo, first in a chop in a Final Table $10K GTD NLHE (83 entries), the Chinook Winds $50K GTD NLHE (technically second, but I got a skosh more money, 210 entries), and a bunch of Jackpot Sit-and-Gos.
As usual, I didn’t play much in the way of cash games, but a couple of decent sessions at Portland Meadows were enough to make that part profitable.
Goals in the new year: satellite into a $5K or $10K buyin. I’ve got my eye on the Bay 101 Shooting Star (which has satellites running this month and February) or the LAPC/WPT Main Event at the end of February, with two 50-Seat guaranteed mega satellites just before Day 1. Then, of course, there’s the WSOP Main Event.
Love to goto the Irish Poker Open in March, but there are some obstacles in the way that make it easier to try for Bay 101 or LAPC instead. PokerStars hasn’t announced that there’ll even be and EPT Prague next year, so that ship may have sailed.
