The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.
Started off the evening with an Ignition Casino $1K GTD NLHE Turbo.
Busted that then jumped into the $500 GTD PLO8 Turbo. Made it up to the top of the leaderboard for a while, but hit a snag and augured into oblivion.
The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.
My co-worker Ben (see Vegas Trip Report) came over for a go at the Chocolate Bourbon Milkshake and some online poker. I put on the NBC Sports replay of the Poker Masters, and we watched Brandon Adams win a match, then some PLO, while we played the Ignition Casino $2K GTD NLHE Turbo.
Ben was doing better than I was at first, then he got in with the second-best full house before getting knocked out. I managed to double up with aces, then eventually got knocked out with second-best two pair.
We each played a NLHE Jackpot Sit-n-Go. Ben got a 5x payout table. Neither of us cashed.
After he left, the Short Deck tournament came on TV and I played the $1K GTD PLO Turbo. I hit a gutshot straight for the nuts on the turn against a short stack a few minutes in, but the jack I needed gave him a set and a river ten paired the board to make a full house. I managed to get it in good at the end but you’re never good until the river in PLO.
The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.
After midnight, I played an Ignition $400 GTD PLO8 tournament for about six hands, doubled up on hand five, then lost everything in a high-only hand when the card that made my straight boated the other guy up.
I late-regged the evening Ignition $25K GTD NLHE 90 minutes into the game with about 20bb. I managed to get a double up with J♠ 9♠ by hitting a nine-high flop and shoving over a raise from the big stack who had sevens. Got another one with a pair of tens. Then I folded this hand preflop, my client seized up after showing the flop (apparently it couldn’t believe it, either).
The 607-entry tournament had a prize pool of more than $30K, and we were les than 30 spots away from the min cash (at 126) when I got tens again. My stack had dwindled to 10bb and I shoved from UTG+2. UTG+4 re-shoved with 15bb and a 9bb stack called all-in.
I was flipping against the two of them to start, and things looked great through the turn. The AK couldn’t win with a diamond so he was down to four outs; the nines could only win with two cards. And of course one of them came on the river. So out 153rd after ninety minutes of play
Entered the Ignition $5K NLHE Turbo just after the first break, managed to stay in for about an hour with a couple of double-ups, then lost a race and went out 155th of almost 600 entries.
The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.
After the turkey was consumed at my brother’s house for Thanksgiving, we came home and I got into the nightly Ignition Casino $4K GTD PLO8. As is usual for me in Pot-Limit Omaha tournaments (and I assume, for a lot of people), it was a rather down-and-up affair over the 200+ hands I played before getting to the final table.
I was under starting stack over the first 40 or so hands, crossing back over the line, then back under, then took a big hit that dropped me to half the starting stack (and about 20bb). I more than doubled up on hand 50, lost a third of my stack three hands later, then zoomed into the top 10 on the leaderboard just a few hands later. Volatile, a the kids say.
I dropped out of the top 10 a couple of times, but I was back up there by the time the bubble approached. I laid back, accidentally folding one hand I intended to play, and with blinds jumping up quickly, I was one of the short stacks by the time we reached the final table.
There was a bit of an overlay in the tournament—one of the few times I can remember getting in one like that. And I managed to outlast three of the other players to grab 6th place for a nice 500% ROI. Only another $97,816 in earnings before the end of December and I keep playing!
The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.
Woke up early after a great dinner last night at Hunan Pearl, jumped into the Ignition Casino $300 PLO8, got quartered on a hand and was out in 15 minutes.
Bested my time there with three hands to busto with a late entry in the evening $1K NLHE Turbo.
Lasted longer but didn’t make any more money in a NLHE Super Turbo. Ran into a set of aces early on and was left with just 3bb, then managed to recover a little but busted with sixes against jacks.
The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.
The Ignition Casino Golden Spade Poker Open series is wrapping up this week, and there was a 3-Seat GTD satellite this evening to Event #111 $30K GTD NLHE 6-Max Turbo. I went out in 9th place after AX KX lost to AX TX, watching election day coverage. Late-regged a $500 GTD Omaha Hi-Lo game at the first break and busted in 25th place with 12 paying.
Last game for the day was a $1K PLO Turbo. Regged 45 minutes in, played for about an hour, got unlucky after getting all in ahead twice (at least, as much as you’re ever ahead in PLO) against the same player, doubling him up the first time and getting knocked out the second. 30th place with 15 paying.
I went to #Claudias to chat with @DavidLongPoker about @PACWESTclassic in October but he got a case of the good-weathers and didn't show, so I played instead and took first place. https://t.co/mQAWtcqNn3
— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) August 28, 2018
The Ignition Super Millions Poker Open ended Sunday and last week I popped into another small $10K GTD NLHE 6-Max, busted halfway through, then banged straight out of the nightly $3K GTD NLHE 6-Max. A couple nights later I nabbed 3rd place in a 153-entry $500 GTD NLHE Turbo Bounty, picking up 8 bounties along the way.
The Final Table $10K GTD NLHE went bad from start to finish, and I busted my live rebuy just before the break, then dropped 100bb in 45 minutes on the shootout tables.
Saturday, I got into an Ignition $300 GTD O8 and just started sucking up chips, then blew a stack that should have gotten me to first or second and took 4th out of 36 for a small cash. Got halfway through the Sunday 6-Max ($4K), and busted a $1K NLHE Super Knockout early.
Monday…well, last week I’d promised I’d have to get over to Claudia’s (at SE 30th & Hawthorne, always the closest game to my house) for the Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo game they spread once a week, and I headed over this week to see if I could catch David Long, my semi-regular partner for trips to Lincoln City and Pendleton, to talk about October’s Fall Coast Classic Poker Tournament at Chinook Winds. He wasn’t there, so I played the tournament myself (I might have been thinking about that anyway), got seated next to Joe Brandenburg on his first visit there, and I ended up taking first place (all those years of low-level PLO8 and Big O at the late Portland Players Club still paying off!) And with 45% going to first place even after we paid a bubble, even Steve Chanthabouasy would be happy with the percentage (though maybe not the size of the pot).
And Tuesday, the second episode of the PokerTime session I played in dropped, and I actually play a couple of hands.
I haven’t seen any announcements for the big Labor Day holiday weekend, so I’ll just leave you with the Oregonian article that Josh Stellmon posted Monday to the NW Poker Facebook group, which includes some news about redevelopment plans for the Portland Meadows site.
Mackenzie via City of Portland and Oregonlive.com
The full schedule for the Fall Classic is out, and for the first time that I can recall since starting up the #PNWPokercal, Muckleshoot is putting guarantees (instead of cash added to the prize pool) on their tournaments. A minimum of $500K in prize money is up for grabs over 7 tournaments.
Muckleshoot has spearheaded the concept of satellites for multiple events with games running the three weeks before the series on Sunday morning (10:15am) and Wednesday night (7:15pm) for $150 where a cash gets you $1,250 in tournament entries. There are three nights of $190 tournaments with $1,750 in tournament buyins in a gap between the two weekend of the series.
A 2-day Main Event (29—30 September, $750 buyin) with $150K GTD and two $100KGTD (22 & 28 September, $400 buyin) events are the tentpoles of the series, with an $80K GTD tournament leading off on 21 September ($300 buyn). Thrown into the mix are a $25K GTD LHE tournament (23 September, $200 buyin) and $15K GTD O8 (27 September, $200 buyin) for the fixed limit fans, and a finale I know a couple people will love: the $40K GTD NLHE Shootout (30 September, $300 buyin).
Ticket presales are already open.
It’s been a great start to the summer season in Las Vegas for mixed-game players from the Pacific Northwest, not the least of which was Jeremy Harkin’s take-down early this morning of the bracelet for World Series of Poker Event #12: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice 6-Handed, closing it out against two-time bracelet winner Frankie O’Dell, with an active rail of Portland-area players supporting him (including Liz Brandenburg, who live-streamed the end on Facebook). For the uninitiated, the Dealer’s Choice tournament has 20 possible games to select. I owe Jeremy a lot of thanks for offering me cheap digs in Vegas two summers ago, when I really needed a break so that I could take the WSOP reporting job.
New players on the leaderboard this edition include Chad Campbell of Seattle whose first recorded Hendon Mob cash is a 2nd-place finish in the $1,600 buyin Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza III $250K GTD PLO MonsterStack. That’s a pretty nice way to start off the record.
Tukwila’s Tamir Hasan took 1st at the Grand Poker Series #12 Mixed PLO8/O8/Big O for what is only his second recorded cash; he min-cashed in an O8 tournament at the WSOP in 2016.
WSOP #9 $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo was a hunting ground for established PNW players. There were 4 PNW players in the top 15 of the 169-entry tournament. Dylan Linde (Couer D’Alene) and Talon White (Sheridan) took 15th and 14th, respectively (it’s Linde’s 44th WSOP cash and White’s first). Steve Chanthabouasy took 12th (his 14th WSOP cash). Adam Coats made it all the way to 3rd (WSOP cash number 11), doubling his lifetime recorded earnings.
In non-mixed game news, it wouldn’t be a leaderboard report without a six-figure cash from Almedin Imsirovic, taking 2nd in the $26K buyin Aria High Roller 82. Matt Affleck grabbed first place in the Venetian DSE3 #28 $500K GTD.
Back on the wild side, Jesse Hampton of Mercer Island came in 3rd in WSOP #8 Mixed Triple Draw Lowball.
Here’s Worm’s group victory shot. I wish I’d been there for you, man! Maybe I can just Photoshop my way in…
Happy Poker New Year from Las Vegas! I’m down here in a city with its own bagpiper blowing to announce the coming of…whatever.
I missed all of the New Year’s Eve shenanigans here (though I was at a party in Beaverton with an upside-down Christmas tree), catching an emptyish 8am flight on the 1st so I could take a shot at a $100K guarantee event at the Venetian. The first couple of levels were fantastic, and I almost tripled my stack. It was slower going after that, though I was still in good shape, knocking out three players from a table that included WSOP bracelet-holders Allyn Shulman and her husband Barry Shulman, who own CardPlayer Magazine, A little brush with poker media dynasty, that. Allyn started at the table, Barry showed up several levels in as tables were consolidating, then Allyn busted and I ran QX QX into Barry’s KX KX and was severely crippled before I went out two hands later after I limped AX JX got called by 2X 2X in the big blind, and jammed into him on a KX JX 2X flop. That was it for me in the $100K.
If you look closely, you’ll see Kao Saechao in the standings with a decent stack. Day 2 starts with 74 and pays 54. It’ll all be over by the time you read this.
Event 18: $400 SuperStack $100K GTD Day 2 Chip Counts: 74/492 remain, 54 paid & $35,965 to 1sthttps://t.co/7WZxoy99bR pic.twitter.com/q0twDzLTiO
— Venetian Poker Room (@VenetianPoker) January 3, 2017
Played a little PLO, went back to the room and got into a WSOP.com $20K where I did well for a while but was hobbled by the fact I hadn’t realized it was a rebuy and addon (it pays to look at the structure before you buy in at the last minute!) then was playing catchup and was crippled (again) when I called a 15bb late-position all-in from the big blind with A♥ Q♠ and Q♦ T♣ hit a ten right on the flop. That left me in the small blind with 1bb behind. I managed to quadruple up with a flush on the next hand but ran into quad queens just five hands later.
I've been at 2 4-8 O8 tables today at Orleans and somehow 2nd youngest guy at each
— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) January 2, 2017
Monday morning I took a shuttle to the Orleans (free from the spot under the Linq) and waited around for a table to open up. For the unacquainted, the casino is full of very old people. I mean, even older than me. And it’s the place to go for Limit Omaha games. They had several tables of O8 at 4-8 and 8-16 (both with kills) running on a Monday morning. Admittedly, it was the Monday after a holiday, but there were 16 cash game tables running, more than anywhere except Bellagio at that time of day. Even as I write this at 2am on Tuesday, Aria has 19 tables, Bellagio has 16, and the Orleans has 12. The Venetian has 9. The wait, though, was long enough that I considered getting off the list to just play the noon O8 tournament, but I late-regged that instead and made it partway through.
There was one amusing hand in the first hour or so, where I was dealt A♣ A♦ A♥ A♠, which is about as bad a hand as you can get in any version of Omaha, but I limped in just to see what would happen. I had another hand where I bluffed that I had a flush with the nut low draw on the turn (with 2s counterfeited by the flop) and not only made my low against an all-in player but bet another player off and took the high with a paired 4. Lost a big pot when my own low was counterfeited on the river and it was down from there.
Played a smaller WSOP.com tournament and made the money, though it was only about enough to cover lunches for the days I’m here.
Tuesday was the $300 bounty tournament at the Venetian. It got 139 entries but I only made it through the first three levels, losing small amounts on a couple hands (including laying down K♣ K♥ on an ace-high board with two diamonds to a bet of half my remaining chips to a guy who showed the 6♦ 2♦ he’d called my pre-flop raise with). 
I raised K♥ J♥ in a hand and was called by Hani Awad, whose WSOP bracelet win I covered this summer. Awad ended up calling my bluff on a queen-high board with 7X 9X and middle pair (the seven), but he’d already knocked out several players and had probably close to five times my stack. He took me out a couple hands later when I shoved AX QX pre-flop, he called with 9X TX from the big blind, and he made two pair by the turn. Not my finest hour. The final numbers for the tournament were $20,850 in the main prize pool, with an extra $13,900 in bounties, and $5,842 scheduled to go to first place. I talked briefly to Awad after he busted me, and he showed me he was wearing his bracelet, so some people at least don’t just toss them in a box or hock them on eBay.
I’d been planning to play the 7pm tournament (a $200 bounty) but decided to force myself to play some cash game. I herded back to the Orleans, sitting in the back seat of the shuttle with some tweaker gal who had “something something HELL” as her tramp stamp complaining about how long her free ride to was taking, had some surf and turf for brunchinner (a single meal for the day), then got on some lists.
A $1/$3 NLHE game opened up relatively fast, and I sat down in seat 5. I was under the gun and raised the first hand I was dealt—T♥ 8♥—then was reraised by seat 7 to $30. Two players called, and I put in the extra $20. The flop was 7♣ 6♥ 5♣, I’ve got an open-ended straight draw for the ten, a backdoor flush draw, so I check it, then seat 7 shoves for more than my remaining stack of $170. The other callers fold, and it’s up to me. I called, the dealer put out a 6♠ on the turn and 8♠ on the river. I can only assume the guy shoved with AX KX because my two pair ended up taking the pot. From there on it was a mostly upward trajectory for ninety minutes, then I checkout out to go call my wife for the evening before deciding whether to play the $75 PLO tournament at 7.
I got into the game late, just as the last level before the break was starting. There were only two tables and I had to wait as an alternate for a couple of minutes while a player who busted just as I was registering kept up a steady stream of complaints about having to go on the alternate list. A spot opened up for him by the time I got to my seat.
I lasted all of ten minutes. I picked up a hand with a pair of aces, raised, was reraised from the other end of the table, made a 4-bet (we weren’t particularly deep at this point, less than 40bb) and he went all in with pocket kings which made a set on the turn. Back to the cash games, after having evened up the day before the tournament.
It took about 40 minutes in the $4/$8 O8 game for me to make up the tournament buyin and a little more. Got on the shuttle bus, had an interesting conversation with a cigar distributor from LA who mentioned he comes up to Portland several times a year, and decided to see what the cash games at the poker room in the Flamingo were like.
The only time I’d played at the Flamingo before was in a late-night turbo tournament. The first thing I noticed after I sat down was that the place was a hotbox. I just about pulled up stakes and left after the first orbit, and had just determined I couldn’t stand it any longer when they finally turned the A/C on. Other than that, things went well and I booked a third winning cash session for the day, picking up another $50 in an hour before I told myself that I had to get to my room to get some sleep before a very early morning shuttle to the airport. No sleep before I wrote this for you folks, of course.
Survivor
Portland Meadows ran the first Survivor-style tournament in Portland (that I’m aware of) on New Year’s Eve. I wasn’t able to make it myself because of other pre-Vegas commitments, but it seems to have been well-received. It’s a bit difficult to make comparisons between this and similar tournament that don’t have add-ons, but thirteen players made as much as 1200% ROI on their buy-in (less if they did the addon or re-entry) in just over six hours, with a friend who made it through texting me the chop came at 6:09pm. Everyone got plenty of time to go out to celebrate the end of the year with their newfound cash.
If it had been a straight 10% payout for 10% of the players (with no add-on) that would have been $1,000 for a $100 buyin (assuming 130 players and a $13,000 prize pool). If the prize had been set at $1,000, there would have been 17 players paid $1,000 (13% of the field) with an 18th player getting $380. With standard payout structures, 10% of the prize pool is usually between 3rd and 4th place money in a field of 130.
#PDXPokerTroubles
Nothing new to report. No unexpected closures (a couple of early closings for New Year’s Eve). The Game should be re-opening tomorrow. Rialto’s been open, Aces Full ran a game on Monday for the holiday, and hopefully (I haven’t seen an announcement yet) Final Table will be running a $20K this weekend.
What happened to @limonpoker? I wonder if the Trumptards finally pushed him over the edge? pic.twitter.com/NpCCQG6glE
— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) January 3, 2017
Limonless
Monday. tournament director Matt Savage asked the question that many in the poker Twitterverse had been wondering about for over a week: “Where is @limonpoker”? The best-known personality on Live at the Bike has been a constant presence on Twitter for years, but mentioned during a pre-Christmas #PokerSesh that some Trump supporters had ganged up to get the account suspended because of his rather outspoken anti-Trump posts (of which there were many).
In Monday’s #PokerSesh (for the uninitiated, his weekly freeform call-in show), Limon mentioned that he’s not going to bother returning to Twitter (sad!) or any other social media, and offered up his back catalog to anyone who want to select segments and post them on YouTube and promote them to try to make money. Crowdsourcing his promotional efforts, in other words. Not insignificantly, for someone to get access to the videos in order to watch them and pull out segments, they’d have to at least temporarily subscribe to Live at the Bike at $20/month…not really PNW news, but Limon’s an Oregon kid….
Deal of the Week: Bay 101 Shooting Star Satellites
The WPT is coming back to Bay 101 for the popular Shooting Star bounty championship in early March, and it’s preceded by a week of daily mega satellites. $275 Satellites have been running since December, but the big ones start 18 February, with daily $550 satellites running 25 February through 1 March and $1,050 sattys for three days starting 2 March.
Bay 101 publishes the payout structures for their satellites, and you can see from the payouts on the $275 events that unless they get 48 players, no seat is awarded (with the money getting paid out on a standard curve), and with 48—79 entries, only one $7,500 seat is awarded, so the odds aren’t exactly good enough to travel to the Bay Area if what you want is a seat. But the $550 and $1,050 buyins are a good buy if you want to get into the Main Event (which begins on 6 March).
This Week In Portland Poker
The big game this weekend should be the First Friday $20K at Final Table.
Only a Day Away
The poker world is ramping back up after the holidays!
Remember to keep an eye on the #PNWPokerCal Twitter hashtag and the PNW Poker Calendar for upcoming events!
Lest anyone think that this blog is going to turn into another guy complaining about his bad beats at the tournament table and life, let me just stipulate that I do have some winning sessions, and that as much as many of my old colleagues from my professional (not poker) career express bewilderment at how I ended up in my current circumstances, there are a lot of people worse off than myself, a middle-aged guy who’s had to go a thousand miles away from wife and home to take a job that’s populated mostly by people who could be my children (and who have more experience as live reporters and better poker resumes than me, in most cases, though perhaps not the same world-weary perspective on, well, everything).
Live reporting hours are long. If an event starts at 3pm on a Day 1, there’s no dinner break, you work 10 hour-long levels with an hours of 15-minute breaks every 2 levels, so it wraps up about 2am. But as a reporter, you need to write an intro for the day as well as finish up any hands and write a recap at the end of the day, and someone needs to write the intro for the next afternoon, so you get there an hour early don’t usually leave the building until 2:30 or 3am. A 2pm restart for Day 2 or Day 3 means you get to the Rio by 1pm or 1:30 at the latest, and with the dinner break, play goes through to 2am again, and again with the recap. So figure 13 to 14 hours at least two days in a row. a little less on the third day if someone wins on schedule, but I’ve had one event where the last two players at the end of Day 3 agreed to play an extra level to finish things off, and then with the Mixed Omaha we had three full days plus the extra hour in Day 4. I’m on salary, but I figure with the number of days I’m working, if I was getting paid overtime, I’m still well ahead of what I have been doing to pay the bills, but it’s not what I was making ten years ago as a programmer or twenty-five years ago in the printing industry.
If the only people who want to hire me any more are poker people, I’ll take it. I’ve made a lot of friends in the world of poker and I’ve got enough of an ego left (did I ever mention that I was once in the Oregonian’s list of the 200 “Most Interesting People in Portland”?) that I get a kick out of someone mentioning they read the blog. Got an invite to a party yesterday at the house where a bunch of the Oregon dealers are staying out in Summerlin (see photos above).
Refreshed from Jello-O shots and America beer, I returned to the house and fired up a 0.25/0.50 PLO8 table. Played 35 minutes and made almost 200 big blinds. Then jumped into 3/6 Stud 8, jumped out after 20 minutes up 6 big bets. Made 18 big blinds profit in a 5-Max NLHE game, then went to bed.
Two more weeks here in Vegas. Tomorrow I jump into the middle of the $1,500 Stud 8 tournament.