Category Archives: Kevmath Quarterly Top 20

PNW Poker Leaderboard — 13 April 2022 — Wildhorse Couldn’t Drag Me Away

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If you’re not watching Severance on Apple TV+, do it now. Nothing poker-related.

Writing this in Portland while long-time friend of the blog Brad Press is out at the Wildhorse Spring Poker Round-Up this week, shaming my supposed dedication to Omaha and HORSE. I haven’t even been playing much around town since coming so close in the 6-Max at Chinook WInds last month.

I did finally play some poker over Zoom, with a group that’s been going for a couple of years, using the PokerStars Home Games feature, which just made me wish I’d pushed the home game I started playing in back in 2008 to do the same. So far, I’ve cashed in three of the five games I played there and got a couple of bounties to offset the buy-in in another.

I did play the Portland Meadows NLHE Monster Stack Freezeout at the end of March, but lasted less than 2 levels. I’d just started to recover from my usual early race-to-the-bottom after playing some low suited connectors and catching a flush, then decided to shove-bluff over the villain in that hand when I picked up [as qs] and the flop was all-hearts with a queen. Jonathan Levy of The Poker Guys was sitting across the table from me while the villain—who hit the flush with his own low suited connectors and actually seemed a little concerned—briefly tanked over the call, and I got a laugh when Jonathan looked under the table to see if my legs were jangling nervously. I don’t think they were. It’s just money!

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

A quick reminder of what makes the Leaderboard. I track players whose cashes are reported to The Hendon Mob tournament database, who have more than $3K in lifetime earnings, and whose residency is listed at Hendon Mob as Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, or Alberta (I suppose I really should add Yukon and Northwest Territories one of these days). Players are included if they have at least one single cash over $10K recorded, and if that cash is at least 300% ROI (no offense, but I’m not going to include WSOP Main Event min-cashes). I encourage everyone to check out the links to Hendon Mob and WSOP to get more details on individual tournaments and series.

Speaking of the 6-Max at Chinook Winds, Justin Foord of Portland was the runner-up in the PacWest Poker Classic #5 $50K GTD NLHE 6-Max, which had 106 entries. Payouts make it look like there was a 3-way deal, with Hillsboro, Oregon’s Andrew Johnson taking 1st. Johnson goes up nearly two hundred places, to #1002; Foord climbs a couple thousand, from #4871 to #2892.

Calgary’s Robert Buckingham gains a couple hundred places (#970) with 5th place in the WSOP Circuit Los Angeles #9 $75K GTD NLHE.

Tualatin, Oregon’s Zachary Bright picked up their biggest-ever cash in the PacWest #19 $225K GTD NLHE Main Event, coming in 6th of 441. Bright jumps up nearly three thousand places on the Leaderboard, to #3026. Fifth-place went to Salem, Oregon’s Michael Mischkot, who debuts on the Leaderboard at #2925. Another newcomer to the Leaderboard is 4th-place finisher Richard Johnson from Eugene, who was part of a four-way deal that places him at #1975. Climbing 500 places is Eugene’s Richard Thysell, with a biggest-ever cash for 3rd. Roger Scott from Shoreline, Washington goes from #4565 to #1393 by taking 2nd. And the winner of the Main Event is another newcomer to the Leaderboard: Larry Brown (his bio just says Oregon) who is #1553.

Landing at #3628 is Washington State’s Dwight Gilbert, the 3rd-place finisher in PacWest #17 $40K GTD NLHE Big Bounty. The tournament picked up 178 entries. Spanaway, Washington’s Richard Reed took 2nd. Also a new entry on the Leaderboard, Reed comes in at #3462. The winner was yet another Leaderboard newcomer, Matthew Gmur, from Oregon. The win—part of a 4-way deal—puts Gmur at #3260.

Matthew Jewett of Shoreline, Washington came in 15th in the 2,273-entry Millionaire Sprint Mayhem Poker Series #3 $500K GTD NLHE Monster Stack, with a prize pool over $1.2M, down at The Lodge in Round Rock, Texas.

The PacWest #1 $100K GTD NLHE opening event brought in 499 players. Kennewick, Washington’s James Stringer almost beat their personal best with 5th place in a 5-way deal, and moves from #1748 to #1351. The newcomer to the Leaderboard of the group is Anthony Chavez from Sunnyside, Washington, with 4th and #3324. Portland’s Brian Barker climbs more than seven hundred places to #1412 with the 2nd-place finish. And Dion Swan — also Portland — took 1st, climbing twenty-seven hundred places to #2045.

Did I mention we’ve got some more results from up north? The Great Canadian Freedom Series NLHE Main Event ran at the Cash Casino in Calgary and drew 142 entries. Karim Chatur from Calgary came in 3rd but actually drops a spot on the Leaderboard to #56 because of other player movement (Vanessa Kade, see below). Another Calgarian, David Howat got their biggest cash for 2nd, and moves up from #747 to #605.

Bainbridge Island player Kyle Rohl placed 6th in the Venetian DeepStack New Year’s Extravaganza #43 $200K GTD NLHE UltimateStack back in January (result just now being applied to their profile). The event picked up 537 entries and Rohl enters the Leaderboard at #2750.

Over in Regina, Saskatchewan, at the Station Poker Classic C$1,100 NLHE there were 299 entries for the C$1,100 event, and Calgary’s Kelly Kellner came in 4th, good for a bump of twenty-five places on the Leaderboard, to #298. Matt Kwong, also from Calgary, came in 4th of 287 in the Station C$900 NLHE, for a personal best and gains almost a hundred places (#438).

At Calgary’s ACE Poker NLHE Colossus, hometown player Grant Frulling topped the field of 264, for their biggest cash and a slide up from #1286 to #942.

Olympia’s Peter Lynn went down to Houston for the Prime Social Texas Poker Championship #9 $500K GTD NLHE The Big Texas, a 643-entry tournament where Lynn came in 6th. It was a career best, and Lynn goes from #2969 to #1555.

Kao Saechao of Renton, Washington won the Venetian DeepStack Showdown Poker Series #19 $40K GTD NLHE Monster Stack in a 4-way deal out of a field of 211. Saechao moves up more than one hundred places, to #433.

Edmonton’s Jonathan Sanborn claimed 1st place over 132 entries at Calgary’s Great Canadian Freedom Series NLHE The C$550, then came in 3rd of 296 at the Station Poker Classic C$500 NLHE three weeks later. Sanborn climbs from #171 to #155.

It was a good showing for PNW players at the new home of the World Series of Poker, in the WSOP Circuit Bally’s #12 NLHE High Roller. Perpetual Leaderboard resident Dylan Linde took 4th, though he drops from #5 to #6 on the Leaderboard (see James Romero, below). The winner of the 98-entry field was Andrew Rodgers from Anchorage, who said he’d lost his job a couple of months before hitting the biggest cash of his career. Rodgers goes up about three hundred spots, to #676.

Andrew Rodgers via WSOP.com

Tyler Knittle of Lakewood, Washington took down their largest cash for 3rd in the 106-entry Tampa Poker Classic $100K GTD NLHE. Knittle jumps more than a thousand places on the Leaderboard, to #1134.

Darren Rabinowitz came in 6th of 393 at the Venetian #2 $500K GTD NLHE Ultimate Stack in early March, but still drops a place to #21 on the Leaderboard because of Adam Hendrix moving up.

Jordan Westmorland was living my dream, playing at the European Poker Tour in Prague, even through it was late winter instead of Christmastime. Westmorland was assigned 2nd place in a 3-way deal in the 129-entry EPT Prague #28 NLHE, which had a prize pool of €301,440. Westmorland gains four spots, and is #40.

Salem’s Jason Beasley beat 331 other players to win the Bally’s Colorado Poker Championship #21 $200K GTD NLHE. Beasley climbs more than sixty places, to #171.

https://twitter.com/ballysbhpoker/status/1505770421911654401?s=20&t=cEy7dSOEVaprufSJm8uWvQ

Where to begin with James Romero’s March? How about at the Venetian #10 $1M GTD NLHE Ultimate Stack? Romero came in 8th out of 409 entries on 9 March. A couple of days later, he was across the street at the Wynn Millions Poker Series $2M GTD NLHE, and took 4th of 889. Then, at the end of the month, it was 2nd of 49 in the Prime #21 NLHE 6-Max in Houston. That was enough to kick Romero up a notch to #5 on the PNW Poker Leaderboard.

Adam Hendrix via PokerGO

Then there’s Adam Hendrix, whose cashes were all in Las Vegas, but there were a lot of them (including a couple that didn’t quite make my reporting guidelines). It started with Hendrix coming in 4th in the same Venetian #10 $1M GTD NLHE Ultimate Stack event Romero cashed in. Then it was over to the Aria for the 88-entry US Poker Open/PokerGo Tour #3 NLHE, which Hendrix won. Hendrix followed that up with 5th of 66 in USPO #8 PLO. Hendrix cracks the Leaderboard All-Time Top 20, moving up four places to #18.

Vanessa Kade continues her assault on live poker. Kade only had a single cash to make this Leaderboard, but it is a career-best live cash (Kade’s win in last year’s PokerStars anniversary online event was larger). Kade goes from #109 to #51 with a 4th-place finish in the Wynn Millions Poker Series $10M GTD NLHE, an event with 1,075 entries.

And we wrap up this Leaderboard (finally) with Chris Brewer. Brewer started off the month in the Czech Republic (Prague!), winning the EPT Prague #9 NLHE, a €10,200, 37-entry tournament. Two days later, 4th of 34 in the €50,000 34-entry (with 11 re-entries) EPT Prague #17 NLHE High Roller. Then, back to Vegas for runner-up in USPO #5 NLHE, which drew 66 entries at $10K each. That’s all good for breaking into the Leaderboard Top 10, moving from #12 to #9.

Chris Brewer via pokerstarsblog

Kevmath Quarterly Top 20

This is the fifth Quarterly and the first one without Seth Davies! Dylan Linde and James Romero swapped positions up in the Top 10 and there’s a sudden influx of Albertan players this quarter: fully 35% of the Top 20 tournament earners.

Players whose names are followed by an asterisk were on the Annual Top 20 list in December.

December 2021 rankApril 2022 rankstateplayer
149Christopher Brewer *
11551Vanessa Kade *
2218Adam Hendrix *
65James Romero *
576172Cody Mckay
385151Rambo Halpern
12987Jayakrishnan Nair
56Dylan Linde *
226162Andy Truong
233171Jason Beasley
238175Pam MacNaughton
3300743Michael Zuro
4440Jordan Westmorland
150127Malcolm Bolger
1506637Ali Taghi Khani
5050970Robert Buckingham
194155Jonathan Sanborn
175148Aaron Thivyanathan *
2078861Brian Foley
2525Maxwell Young *

PNW Poker Leaderboard — 1 January 2022 — Pi Comes After Omicron Edition

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Not a lot of live poker action from me since the World Series of Poker trip I made in October, though I’ve kept up a busy schedule of low-level online Omaha tournaments and Jackpot Sit-n-Go games on Ignition Casino. I played (and min-cashed) the November First Friday $20K GTD at Final Table—look for their new schedule starting 1 January, and barely lasted a level at Portland Meadows Oregon State Big O Championship in mid-December.

I started this blog when I was 49 years old. back at the start of the month, I turned 60. My wife and I went to New York City for my birthday, getting out just befoe the omicron coronavirus variant took over. Got back to PDX at 10:30pm and at 7am the next morning I was on a flight to Hawaii to spend a few days with my father , who was over there using up condo points before the end of the year. That’s Kiluaea behind us in the shot. If you go up there at night, the lava in the crater makes that white smoke look bright red.

PNW Poker Leaderboard

This edition of the Leaderboard includes some October and November straggling results from Canadian casinos. Like these…

Prabakaran Sivabalasundaram from Calgary won the Casino Yellowhead/Pure Poker Tour #1 PLO Bounty back at the end of September, beating out 176 other entries in the C$440 buy-in tournament. Sivabalasundaram climbs two hundred spots to #926.

Edmonton’s Andy Truong came in 2nd in the Yellowhead PPT #3 NLHE out of 326 entries. It’s good for a fifteen spot bump to #226.

Alberta-based Curtil Burlet comes into the Leaderboard hot, with a biggest-ever cash (it only their third) that lands them at #3092, for the runner-up position in Yellowhead/PPT #4 NLHE Bounty. (Remember that bounty cash is not reflected in Hendon Mob records and therefor does not affect the PNW Poker Leaderboard.) Calgary’s Weston Pring won the event, going from #347 to #309. Pring was featured in the last Leaderboard update; they came in 101st in the WSOP Main Event.

Casino Yellowhead/Pure Poker Tour Main Event

A C$1,100 buyin back in early October in Edmonton (470 entries and a prize pool of US$353K), the six top finishers all made it to the Leaderboard. Haven Werner of Calgary took 6th, moving him from #531 to #470. Fort St. John, British Columbia’s Bernice McLennan posted a biggest cash in 5th, jumping all the way to #2079 from #4428. Amir Khan, another Calgarian, took 4th, which combined with a 3rd-place finish in a Wynn Fall Classic $100K GTD NLHE in mid-November (404 entries, $237K prize pool) jumps Khan 1400 places to #917. Surrey, British Columbia’s Mike Kim goes up seventy-four places to #317 by taking 3rd. Out of Whitecourt, Alberta, it’s john Hanna debuting at #1160 on the Leaderboard with a 2nd-place finish. Finally, on the top, is Kyle Ho from Burnaby, with a best-ever cash and a move from #243 to #186.

Jordan Banfield from Calgary won the Deerfoot Inn Fall Super Stack #1 NLHE Deepstack in Calgary, an event that drew 385 entries back in early November. The prize pool was over US$88K. It’s Banfield’s only cash so far, and they enter the Leaderboard at #2622.

Deerfoot Inn Fall Super Stack #5 NLHE Mega Stack

John Nielsen from Sylvan Lake, Alberta placed 4th in this event (354 entries, US$135K pot) back in early November, going up more than 100 places on the Leaderboard, to #849. Coming in at 2nd was Ivan Milanovic, with a best-ever cash (only their fifth on record), good for a first-time ranking of #1990. The champion was Kelly Gall from Calgary, with their biggest cash so far and a jump of fifteen hundred spots on the Leaderboard, to #1284.

Redmond’s Dominick Nguyen found some time to play poker on the East Coast mid-November and won the 432-entry Boston Billiard Club & Casino Veterans Day NLHE tournament for a 2nd-ever cash and a new spot on the Leaderboard at #2586.

Deerfoot Inn Fall Super Stack #7 NLHE Super Stack Main Event

Daniel Lefebvre of Alberta was the 5th-place finisher in this event of nearly 400 entries and a US$300K prize pool. Lefebvre moves three hundred spots on the Leaderboard, to #981 (3 squared and nine squared!) Tyler Hurman from Calgary got their largest-ever cash in 4th, and climbs from #832 to #663. In 3rd was Kaan Becer out of Vancouver, whi gets an increase of twenty places to #193. And Takuma Bergeron from Coquitlam, Alberta got a best-ever cash in a deal for 2nd place, which raised them from #5503 to #1056.

back down to the States, James Battenberg from Issaquah nabbed 4th at a Wynn Fall Classic $100K GTD NLHE that had over three hundred entries and a $148K prize pool. Battenberg moves fifteen hundred places on the Leaderboard, to #2655.

Continuing at the Wynn, Bellevue’s Rajendra Ajmani came in 41st out of a field of 2,573 in the Wynn Fall Classic $1.5M GTD NLHE Mystery Bounty. Ajmani goes from #1104 to #916,

Christopher Brewer hit the jackpot on consecutive days at the Aria High Roller series. On November 16th, Brewer came in 3rd of 43 in Aria High Roller 39 NLHE, then 1st at Aria High Roller 40 NLHE the next day (albeit with only 16 entries). It’s enough to move from #16 to #14 on the Leaderboard.

Catching up to where the last Leaderboard left off on WSOP events, Dylan Wilkerson played World Series of Poker #79 NLHE Poker Hall of Fame Bounty. This new event awarded a bounty for each Poker Hall of Fame player eliminated, with the amount equal to the year they were inducted. There were bounties for eleven HoF entries, plus new WSOP spokesperson Vince Vaughn. All of the bounties were eliminated on Day One. Wilkerson placed 9th out of 468. By the way, Wilkerson’s WSOP profile now lists him as living in San Francisco, so no telling how much longer Hendon Mob will have him as a Washington State player; then he’ll be off the Leaderboard and everyone will move up!

There were 1,921 entries in the $800 WSOP #81 NLHE Deepstack, and Maxwell Sabel of Sun Valley, Idaho made it past 1,911 of them for a 10th-place finish and a first recorded Hendon Mob cash. Sabel makes a debut on the Leaderboard at #3127.

On the other end of the WSOP spectrum, #1-ranked Seth Davies placed 4th of 33 in the WSOP #82 NLHE Super High Roller, where the buy-in was $250K. Davies continues to increase the gap between #1 and #2.

Ian Modder of North Vancouver, British Columbia gets a seven spot increase on the Leaderboard to #141 by placing 36th out of 1,903 in WSOP #83 NLHE The Closer.

WSOP #88 NLHE 8-Max

Despite being called “The Closer”, Event #83 wasn’t even close to being the last bracelet tournament of the 2021 WSOP. This one was. It may be the latest (in the year) tournament to be played at a WSOP for quite some time, since they’re going back to the summer schedule. This game had a $5K buy-in, an aggressive two-day structure, and finished on November 23rd after 531 entries. 3 PNW players made a deep run in the event. with the first being from Edmonton, Ryan Snyder, who gained three hundred places on the Leaderboard, ending at #558. Lee Markholt didn’t gain any ground on the Leaderboard because he’s already way up at #8, but he did place at…8th. . And George Wolff came in 7th. Wolff went on to a mid-December 13th-place finish in the World Poker Tour Five Diamond NLHE Main Event. He stays at #17.

Dylan Linde moves up a spot—inside the Leaderboard top 10!—from #6 to #5 with an 8th-place finish in the WPT Five Diamond NLHE Main Event.

Jumping over to the Czech Republic, Mercer Island’s Carter Newhof rises more than four hundred places to #553 with a 3rd-place showing in World Series of Poker Europe #6 $200K GTD NLHE/PLO. Newhof was the only American in the top 10 of the 230 entries.

Artur Winstone halved his ranking to #2351 by going all the way to North Carolina from Edmonton (WSOP lists him from Honolulu) for the World Series of Poker Circuit Cherokee #3 $100K GTD NLHE.

Jordan Westmorland gains nine places on the Leaderboard with a 5th of 57 finish at WSOP Europe #10 NLHE Platinum High Roller. Westmorland (from Lynnwood, Washington) is now #44.

Tracie Osborne from Lacey, Washington got their biggest cash in Lincoln, California, at the WPTDeepstacks Thunder Valley $1M GTD NLHE Championship by placing 20th of 588. Osborne moves from #2284 to #1722. Steve Chanthabouasy‘s 9th-place finish in the same event kicks them up a notch, to #88.

Kamloops, British Columbia’s Jaroslaw Jaskiewicz came in 3rd at the Venetian DeepStack New Year’s Extravaganza Poker Series #14 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It missed the guarantee with 278 entries. but Jaskiewicz gains about twenty spots, moving to #229.

In Tampa the Seminole hard Rock Winter Poker Open $500K GTD NLHE Main Event more than doubled the guarantee, and Aaron Thivyanathan picked up 10th out of 772, to move from #190 to #175.

Twin Falls’ Sean Banahan racked up a best-ever cash at the Wynn Winter Classic $500K GTD NLHE that wrapped up 12 December with 743 entries. Looking at the payouts, there may have been some sort of deal done at four players remaining. Banahan’s Hendon Mob record only goes back to January 2020, so it’s definitely been impacted by the pandemic, and it includes a cash in a Seniors event, but this was a nice way to end the year! Banahan goes from #1666 to #577.

The final entry in the Leaderboard this time is how I’d like to close out every Leaderboard: Angela Jordison, taking 5th in the 1,042-entry Mid-States Poker Tour Minnesota Winter Poker Classic #9 $300K GTD NLHE Main Event. It’s yet another personal best cash for Jordison, coming just a couple of months after the “money phone” record at the Venetian. This pops Jordison up anothher thirty places on the Leaderboard, to #181.

Kevmath Quarterly Yearly Top 20

This is the fourth edition of the Kevmath Quarterly, which got started before his recent acquisition by GPI/The Hendon Mob. These players are the top 20 recorded tournament earners for mid-December 2020 through mid-December 2021 (ranked in order of 2021 earnings), and the change in their rank on the PNW Poker Leaderboard (which is based on lifetime recorded earnings). Players whose names are followed by an asterisk were on the list last quarter.

Both Seth Davies and Christopher Brewer are far ahead of the pack, with more than $3 million each in recorded tournament cashes over the past year. Adam Hendrix and Dylan Linde are both in the high six figures, the other sixteen names are all in the range between $160K and $400K.

December 2020 RankDecember 2021 rankstateplayer
11Seth Davies *
15614Christopher Brewer *
3122Adam Hendrix *
105Dylan Linde *
4524136Matthew Jewett *
5234Noah Bronstein
369102Adam Walton
4232163Robert Davis
433115Vanessa Kade
18486Harpreet Gill
1516Matt Affleck *
1717George Wolff
2220Darren Rabinowitz *
745175Aaron Thivyanathan *
6124248Jung Woo
3490244Bin Weng
1413Dylan Wilkerson
56James Romero*
2525Maxwell Young *
393190Wayne Harmon

You can see the giant jumps in Leaderboard status resulting from deep runs in the World Series of Poker main Event by Jung Woo and Matthew Jewett; the shot-in-the-dark cash by Bin Weng in the WSOP NLHE High Roller, and Robert Davis‘s runner-up finish in the WSOP NLHE Seniors tournament. Christopher Brewer, Dylan Linde, and Dylan Wilkerson moving up the Leaderboard ranks pushed a couple of other high-performing players down a notch, despite being in the Top 20.

PNW Poker Leaderboard — 02 October 2021: Before the Deluge

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It’s only three days in to the 2021 World Series of Poker so there weren’t a lot of results yet from Las Vegas when I ran the numbers this morning. The only WSOP tournaments that had completed were Event #1 NLHE Casino Employees and Event #3 NLHE Covid-19 Relief, both two-day events that wrapped up on Friday. Several others have concluded by the time I’m writing this, though, including the one I had my hopes on: Event #2 $25K HORSE, so I’m already behind and I haven’t even gotten to Vegas yet.

A pretty short list of results this time around, with what seems to have been a lulll in events before the WSOP started up.

First off is Toppenish, Washington’s Rafael Haro, GPI: 4,889, with a 3rd place finish in Los Angeles, at the Commerce Hold’em Series NLHE Main Event. The tournament drew 399 entries for a prize pool of $399K. Haro placed one spot higher than Barry Greenstein. Haro moves nearly 1,000 places up the Leaderboard, to#923 from #1920.

Seth Davies GPI:64 continues to do well in the high stakes games with a runner-up finish out of 38 entries at Poker Masters #10 NLHE. Davies maintains his #1 position on the Leaderboard.

And believe it or not, we’re already at the final result for this Leaderboard: Yesit’s Christopher Brewer, winner out of 57 entries in the Poker Masters #8 NLHE. Brewer isGPI:65 (just one spot behind Davies) and moves up on this Leaderboard five spots, to #16, jumping over the likes of Darren Rabinowitz, Quinn Do, Matthew Jarvis, George Wolff, and Tyler Patterson.

Also, want to mention that Hendon Mob is great people!

Kevmath Quarterly Top 20

I’m actually a little late with this one, I should have done it a couple weeks ago, but life intervened. These are the top tournament earners from the PNW for the past three months (some movements are the result of late reporting from 2020 tournaments). Player whose names are followed by an asterisk were on the list last quarter.

June 2020 RankJune 2021 rankstateplayer
11Seth Davies *
3216Christopher Brewer *
76Dylan Linde *
4071186Jaime Cervantes Alvarez
1515Matt Affleck
2624Adam Hendrix *
2221Darren Rabinowitz
417204Aaron Thivyanathan *
4283591Matthew Jewett
8779Homan Mohammadi
2325Maxwell Young *
551353Landen Lucas
55James Romero
88Lee Markholt
642431Rambo Halpern
2122923Rafael Haro
390233Kris Steinbach
316260Cuong Lieu
1283761Kevin Theodore
123114Scott Eskenazi

PNW Poker Leaderboard — Father’s Day 2021 — WSOP is Go!

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2021 WSOP Schedule Released

The big news of the past two weeks is, of course, the announcement of the 2021 World Series of Poker Schedule last Monday. I had my room reservation at the Rio and flights scheduled by 11am that morning, after listening to Kevmath and the folks on the Rec Poker podcast as they went through it just after it hit the internet. I’m not going to bore you with my thoughts on the schedule—there are plenty of people far more knowledgable than myself ready to do that—but my own plans (depending on how things work out) include the 2-day Event #24 $600 PLO 8-Max Deepstack on October 12th, Event #27 $1,500 HORSE (3 days, October 13th), and Event #28 $1,000 PLO 8-Max (also 3 days, October 14th), along with however many satellites I can fit in before that Saturday night (hopefully not too many).

Still haven’t played a live game anywhere, though everyone is ramping up. The Game ran a $400 buy-in tournament this weekend scheduled for June 26. Portland Meadows has a $120 freezeout at noon every Saturday and a $100 freezeout on Sundays. And Final Table announced a competition Friday to give points to frequent players that comp them into a tournament where they play for a seat at the WSOP.

Podcast Frenzy

I mentioned the other day (ad nauseum) that I was on the Poker in the Ears podcast with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton. If you’re in a PokerStars real-money market, they give you a $109 ticket for the Sunday Millions tournament, but if you’re a victim of Black Friday or some other government regulatory shenanigans, they send you a consolation prize of some PokerStars merchandise. I unbagged my winnings this week.

I even made it into the last episode of the season, after I posted a tweet with some antique James Bond merch to Hartigan, an aficionado of all things Bond.

Since I started walking into work again a couple of weeks ago, my podcast listening time has gone back up, and at the end of last month I was listening to an interview of 2019 WSOP Player of the Year Rob Campbell on an episode of The Lock-In podcast, and he mentioned that he’d been doing a show called Podker. Co-hosted by $1/$3 cash game player and radio personality Angus O’Loughlin, it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve heard, as two guys with very Australian accents talk hand histories and interview people like Daniel Negreanu and Dan Zack and Daniel “Jungleman” Cates. Really, all the Dans. There are just a couple of seasons of 10 episodes so far, go back to the first one (November 2019) and trace the journey.

Kevmath’s Quarterly Year in Review

Thee months ago at the suggestion of Kevin Mathers, I ran the first year-over year ranking for the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard, and it’s time for the second edition already! Players are listed in order by their recorded tournament earnings between mid-June 2020 and mid-June 2021. The numeric values are their Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard ranks at the beginning and the end of the year-long period,

June 2020 RankJune 2021 rankstateplayer
78232Christopher Brewer
11Seth Davies
3126Adam Hendrix
2523Maxwell Young
430143Vanessa Kade
396173Adam Walton
1413Dylan Wilkerson
1309411Brian Meadows
107Dylan Linde
390233Wayne Harmon
766417Aaron Thivyanathan
7163Chad Wassmuth
2627Esther Taylor-Brady
3938Kao Saechao
1197575Brian Swanson
1507653Glenn Thompson
56761105Brett Polen
154133Dien Le
228198Daniel Park
473358Reginald Caymol

Vanessa Kade is the big newcomer to this list, with a cash (see below) in live tournaments after her massive online win in the Sunday Millions 15th Anniversary earlier this spring. A few folks fell off the list as cashes between March and June of last year dropped away.

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

Nobody was new to the Leaderboard this semi-month.

Let’s start out with Aaron Thivyanathan from Renton, who came 4th (of 202) in WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa #5 NLHE for his second-biggest score. Thivyanathan goes from #464 to #417 (that is since the last Leaderboard, the numbers in the table above are between last June and now).

Dien Le from Bellevue placed 7th of 398 in Seminole Hard Rock Deep Stack Poker Series #5 $200K GTD NLHE. Le climbs eight spots to #133.

Tony Hoang of Edmonton placed 8th in a Wynn Summer Classic $250K GTD NLHE held 7—10 June (why can’t the Wynn number their tournaments like normal people?) 1,350 entrants made for a prize pool of over $700K. Hoang moves from #431 to #386.

There were 2,790 entries in the MSPT/Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series #41 $1.5M GTD NLHE, pushing the prize pool to nearly $2.7M. 20th place was Filmon Ghebreegzabheir from Issaquah. Moving nearly 100 places up the Leaderboard, Ghebreegzabheir is now #514. Adam Walton of Seattle came in 11th in the same event, and rises to #173.

Out of Sherwood Park, Alberta, YePing Shan won the Venetian #50 $100K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It’s Shan’s largest recorded cash, and takes him up to #520 on the Leaderboard.

Christopher Brewer continues a journey through the high roller circuit, with a 7th place in the US PokerOpen/PokerGO #11 NLHE at the Aria/PokerGO studio. There were 69 entries. Brewer sticks at #32.

Adam Hendrix was the runner-up in USPO #5 NLHE with 85 runners. A good score, but not enough to move up from #26.

Down Under, Canadian Michael Maddocks had a good couple of weeks. First, there was a 3rd place cash in a field of nearly 500 in the WPTDeepStacks Gold Coast #1 NLHE. Always a good way to start the series. Then, a week later, runner up in a field of 1,113, in WPTDS Gold Coast #6 NLHE, for his biggest score to date. And a couple of weeks after that it’s another 3rd place (out of 108) in the Australian Poker League Poker Tour NLHE Jackstar Super High Roller. Maddocks jumps nearly 500 places on the Leaderboard, to #224.

We’ll wrap up this edition of the Leaderboard with the afore-mentioned Vanessa Kade, who rises almost 300 places to #143 with her jump into IRL high-roller poker. After her Sunday Millions, she popped into the US Poker Open. Kade came in 4th of 99 in USPO #9 NLHE, then 5th just a couple of days later in USPO #11 NLHE.

That’s it for now! Happy belated Juneteenth and have a great Father’s Day (you know who you are!)

A Year of COVID Poker

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Kevin Mathers (@kevmath on Twitter, follow him if you have somehow been living under a rock for the past year, hey, we sort of have been living under a rock!) got hold of me this morning and asked if there actually was such a thing as the PNW Leaderboard. As I explained to him, because I’m compiling my stats entirely from the Hendon Mob state and province leaderboards, I’m not going to just republish their data. The numbers you see here are entirely my own, combining their Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia (and Alberta, I just remembered!) into a single regional Leaderboard.

And publishing just the top names out of the more than 6,000 players I track wouldn’t be any fun; as I’ve mentioned ad nauseum there’s not a lot of movement up at the top. However, Mr. Math did say he thought a quarterly Top 20 for the results of the past year might be a kind of cool thins, and since I have nothing else to do other than compiling all of the stuff I need to feed to the IRS for my audit before Monday, I figured why not?

These are the rankings on the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard for The Plague Year. Last March to now, ranked by earnings (go to Hendon Mob to see what those are). Some people didn’t move at all, others just a little, and some zoomed up, despite the difficulties of (mostly) live poker in 2020 and early 2021.

March 2020 RankMarch 2021 RankStatePlayer

78275Christopher Brewer

11Seth Davies

2524Maxwell Young

3130Adam Hendrix

390235Wayne Harmon

2626Esther Taylor-Brady*

1197569Brian Swanson

7164Chad Wassmuth

1414Dylan Wilkerson

3938Kao Saechao

97Lee Markholt

766552Aaron Thivyanathan

1311827Joseph Beltran Arredondo

396330Adam Walton

1717George Wolff

51761796Armin Yazdani

853648Darin Stout

42431801Derek Huynh

34471678Ilya Sofinskiy

473399Reginald Caymol

*seriously, she hasn’t lived here for a long time, but she’s still on the Hendon Mob list for Oregon