King of Asskissing — June to December 2023

This started off months ago as the wrap-up of my uneventful and mercifully brief trip to this year’s World Series of Poker, where I made attempts on two bracelet events (Event #7 Limit Hold’em and Event #9 Seven-Card Stud), played next to a very annoying person in an Aria $50K GTD HORSE tournament, ran a pair of aces aground in a Wynn $50K GTD NLHE Survivor that would have saved my trip, and at the Orleans $50K GTD NLHE before I headed home.

But I got bored writing about it and bored thinking about people not reading it even if I finished, so I put it off until the next month, and the next month, and by September I wasn’t sure I’d ever write another post here (it’s happened before, I have a personal blog on politics, programming, books, and games that’s gone years without updates).

But I’m back got a year-end wrap-up and what has got to be the most time-consuming Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard I’ve ever done.

That’s all water under the bridge, though. I barely remember the details.

What I do remember is, I have a database of every single cash game and tournament I’ve played since Black Friday in 2011. So here are a few numbers.

Overall Stats

Nearly 500 entries in the database with only 19 cash games. 149 profits in tournaments (31.5%), but that looks better than it actually is, for reasons I’ll get to in a minute. 4% ROI overall, 9% in tournaments. I wasn’t able to make either of the Chinook Winds series this year or any of the Wildhorse events.

Ignition Casino

Most of my play this year was online on Ignition, with 385 tournaments and 2 cash games. Most of that was in the $2 Jackpot Sit-n-Gos, 3-player turbo tournaments where the payout for first place is $4 or—in a very small percentage of the games—up to $2,400. I have never seen a payout larger than the 5x multiplier for $10. I won 117 of 320, which would have been a loss of $172 except for a number of $10 payouts, so a 4% ROI.

I played a number of Irish Poker Open qualifiers and satellites in the early part of the year, then mostly stuck to Fixed-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, POLO, and PLO8 tournaments where I had a little success early on but lost money overall.

Home Games

My original home game group only got together once during the year (though I did just get an invite to the first game of 2024!) and even though I took 3rd, since I did a rebuy I lost $20. Do not rebuy in single-table tournaments inless you’re just there for the company.

The other home game is only at home for me. One of the players from the original game introduced me during the pandemic to a group that almost always meets for some $20/$25 home games using the Home Game feature of the PokerStars play money client. There’s an accompanying Zoom call, though I’m not usually on it since I just play from the living room while my wife and I are watching TV. Often, there are two—sometimes three—games during the night, usually starting out with NLHE, then a Bounty game of some sort: NLHE or PLO8. Just a couple of tables at most. Played 44 of those over the course of the year and cashed in 15 for a 25% ROI.

America’s Card Room

I had a little bit of money left on ACR at the beginning of the year, but I’d forgotten about it. Remembered it mid-year and that ACR had a better selection of non-NLHE tournaments than Ignition, so I played for a bit during the summer until I ran down my account (or did I? I’d better check). Took 4/55 in a Stud/8 tournament on my second outing and a 2/155 in a Big O Progressive Knockout, plus a bunch of min-cashes in games where I’d done a rebuy (this is called a loss), so -22% ROI over the course of 23 tournaments and 14 low-stakes Big O and Stud 8 cash games.

Portland Area

This is The Game, Final Table, and Last Frontier (in La Center). The year kicked off great at Last Frontier, where my first poker of 2023 was a three-way chop in a $10K GTD Limit Hold’em tournament. Then I thought I’d take that run and apply it at The Game’s Big O tournament where I was the first player out (after losing 25bb in NLHE cash). Back to Last Frontier for an early out in a $25K GTD NLHE tournament, and in October, Brad Press convinced me to drive up for the $8/$16 Limit Omaha 8 cash games. Waited around for those for a while, got in, and blasted away a couple hundred pretty fast.

At Final Table, I played several of the $20K GTD NLHE First Friday tournaments, never getting into the money (or closer than about 35% of the field) but there’s something about the jumps in the top of their payout structures that’s been bugging me since I noticed it last December.

A jump of $290 from 8th to 7th. Jump of $285 from 7th to 6th. Jump of $290 from 6th to 5th. $285 again from 5th to 4th. $580 jump from 4th to 3rd. 100% increase of $2880 from 3rd to 2nd. Only $2,045 increase from 2nd to 1st. Weird.

ROI for all of that: 0%. $8 profit on $2,595 costs, with everything zeroed out only by the January score at Last Frontier!

Vegas

The trip to the World Series of Poker this year was a complete bust, poker-wise. I only had one weekend, spent it at Ellis Island with my co-worker Ben, and got in a quick meet-up with Kevmath while I was waiting for Brad Press to get through to the registration desk.

My targets were two of the smallest $1500 buy-in bracelet events of the Series: #7 Limit Hold’em and #9 7-Card Stud. Didn’t make it even close to Day 2 of either one. Brad and I headed over to Aria on my third day to play the $50K GTD HORSE tournament there. I made it halfway through and suffered through a pro sitting next to me who felt entitled to reach his pinkie under my arm to flick my ante chip in when he through I was going to be too slow getting it in for the next hand. Brad did well, though, coming in 5th, and his buddy Bobby got first. I busted out and late-regged a Wynn NLHE Survivor tournament with a $5K payout that would have completely saved the trip, doubled up almost immediately, then let my aces get cracked on a paired board by Q9. My last day, it was the Orleans for a long slog in their $50K NLHE tournament where I beat two-thirds of the field but went home empty-handed.

Portland Meadows

When I was playing more often, I spent more time at Final Table than Portland Meadows, because I tried to avoid weekend games, and the bigger games at Meadows were on Saturday, while the major weekly tournaments at FT have always been on Friday night, which didn’t impact our home life as much. On the other hand, Meadows runs more non-NLHE tournaments, so I found myself drawn over there several times this year, starting with their Biggest of Os Big O tournament in February (brick), then their HEROS tournament in April (also brick). A rebuy in a little PLO tournament in August gort me halfway through the field.

Then, on a whim, I went out for a Saturday night NLHE Freezeout in September and a two-way chop. Then, the next month at the Big Bet Mix I nabbed 2nd out of the field of 55.

Back in December for the weekend of the Oregon State Championship, I busted from the NLHE day before the end of registration, but got through the 111-entry field for the Big O championship to the foinal table with the largest stack, staying that way up to the point I was heads-up with the eventual winner. Another straight -out 2nd place, no deal, no chop.

So, overall, it’s been a profitable year. More profitable if I hadn’t gone down to Vegas, but that’s probably not going to stop me from doing it again in 2024.

Enough about me! Let the wild rumpus begin!

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard: End-of-Year 2023

The last Leaderboard was almost exactly a year ago. I didn’t think I was going to run it again, but after talking to people about this here blog at the Big O tournament earlier in the month, I thought I’d check to see if the script I wrote six or seven years ago would still do the job, even though it would need to deal with a lot more data (a year’s worth of results rather than a month) and I couldn’t be sure the formats of the Hendon Mob state/province leaderboards hadn’t changed. But everything worked!

My previous methodology was to report on every player with a cash of more than $10,000 in the reporting period, but as you can guess, with a period 12 times as long (there are nearly 250 new players on the lisrt by the old measure); I’d never get a year-long Leaderboard done because, let’s face it, nobody’s paying me to do this and I’m a lazy, semi-retired poker player. So this edition is going to be sort of seat-of-the-pants*, and I’m going to look for highlights. Apologies if you should be on here for your accomplishments last year and I didn’t include you!

* After finishing this sucker off, this is the methodology:

  1. Only new or updated players with $120K of earnings reported on Hendon Mob over the past year.
  2. Only events with payouts of $10K or more; many of these players have other cashes through the year under $10,000.
  3. Only events with 400% ROI. This rules out a lot of cashes that are five or even six figures where the buy-in was substantial.
  4. Presented in reverse order of their current standing on the Leaderboard, not by the amount won in 2023, although that’s a rough gauge.

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 the number of entries.
    • The tournament prize pool in US dollars.
Chris Hundley (Kirkland, Washington)
#7827
#642
+7185
1st of 180 entries, $145.9K prize pool
3rd of 556 entries, $742.2K prize pool
Kali Shuali (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#638
1st of 226 entries, $158.2K prize pool
1st of 472 entries, $101K prize pool
Vincent Wong (British Columbia)
#529
4th of 385 entries, $251.5K prize pool
7th of 564 entries, $389.1K prize pool
Alexander Cole-Gardner (Bend, Oregon)
#495
3rd of 446 entries, $313.6K prize pool
6th of 7300 entries, $4.9M prize pool
Brent Mutter (Poulsbo, Washington)
#1538
#468
+1070
2nd of 263 entries, $702.2K prize pool
Mehmet Siginc (Calgary, Alberta)
#416
1st of 120 entries, $78.5K prize pool
1st of 287 entries, $268.2K prize pool
1st of 136 entries, $92.5K prize pool

Not huge fields or giant prize pools, but three first places in a row puts Siginc on the Leaderboard in a big way.

Stephen Dauphinais (Edmonton, Alberta)
#1504
#408
+1096
5th of 454 entries, $315.4K prize pool
9th of 946 entries, $1M prize pool
2nd of 236 entries, $165.4K prize pool
4th of 287 entries, $268.2K prize pool
2nd of 325 entries, $190.9K prize pool
Krystn Hady (Calgary, Alberta)
#3865
#394
+3471
1st of 946 entries, $1M prize pool
George Heim (Cooper Landing, Alaska)
#912
#389
+523
2nd of 183 entries, $78.6K prize pool
3rd of 805 entries, $780.8K prize pool
Jason Johnson (Spokane, Washington)
#377
2nd of 3778 entries, $2.6M prize pool

Imagine having your first-ever recorded cash as runner-up for a bracelet in a $2.6M tournament.

Kelly Gall (Calgary, Alberta)
#1007
#348
+659
2nd of 4303 entries, $1.9M prize pool
Johnathan French (Canmore, Alberta)
#307
1st of 1432 entries, $1.6M prize pool

Only one recorded cash last year—and that in January—but it was a doozy.

Zhigang Yang (Richmond, British Columbia)
#2818
#291
+2527
7th of 1314 entries, $4.1M prize pool
104th of 3835 entries, $40M prize pool
Nicholas Lee (Calgary, Alberta)
#2260
#276
+1984
1st of 1539 entries, $377.7K prize pool
3rd of 287 entries, $268.2K prize pool
1st of 325 entries, $190.9K prize pool
Matt Kwong (Calgary, Alberta)
#426
#262
+164
2nd of 946 entries, $1M prize pool
Stephen Nahm (Burnaby, British Columbia)
#245
1st of 2017 entries, $1.7M prize pool

Nahm hasn’t shown up on the Leaderboard before because he hasn’t had a five-figure cash since I started tracking British Columbia, but he racked up four cashes at the WSOP and one at the Venetian this summer, including the PLO bracelet.

Tyler Willse (Hillsboro, Oregon)
#348
#219
+129
3rd of 385 entries, $193.9K prize pool
3rd of 1270 entries, $1.1M prize pool
Joon Park (Surrey, British Columbia)
#441
#217
+224
1st of 502 entries, $123.6K prize pool
2nd of 454 entries, $315.4K prize pool
3rd of 392 entries, $278.6K prize pool
5th of 338 entries, $323.1K prize pool
3rd of 236 entries, $165.4K prize pool
Kang Lee (Edmonton, Alberta)
#814
#214
+600
1st of 1710 entries, $1.5M prize pool
Eric Trexler (Bremerton, Washington)
#1143
#200
+943
2nd of 23088 entries, $5.6M prize pool
Haven Taylor (Calgary, Alberta)
#379
#193
+186
1st of 254 entries, $71.6K prize pool
1st of 1057 entries, $729.3K prize pool
Pen Li (Calgary, Alberta)
#236
#168
+68
11th of 6085 entries, $3.1M prize pool
159th of 10043 entries, $93.3M prize pool
Mike Kim (Surrey, British Columbia)
#287
#167
+120
1st of 61 entries, $78.7K prize pool
1st of 387 entries, $383.9K prize pool
4th of 209 entries, $202.7K prize pool
Nohad Tellani (Edmonton, Alberta)
#300
#164
+136
5th of 155 entries, $325.7K prize pool
2nd of 22 entries, $51.2K prize pool
4th of 220 entries, $255.6K prize pool
3rd of 407 entries, $618.6K prize pool
5th of 209 entries, $202.7K prize pool
Mike Thorpe (Auburn, Washington)
#309
#153
+156
3rd of 69 entries, $690K prize pool
1st of 424 entries, $123.8K prize pool
Colton Yamagishi (Edmonton, Alberta)
#218
#150
+68
22nd of 1432 entries, $1.6M prize pool
1st of 138 entries, $38.7K prize pool
3rd of 61 entries, $78.7K prize pool
2nd of 108 entries, $55K prize pool
2nd of 136 entries, $92.5K prize pool
3rd of 274 entries, $285.5K prize pool
Brian Barker (Portland, Oregon)
#1121
#148
+973
42nd of 23088 entries, $5.6M prize pool
3rd of 274 entries, $274K prize pool
3rd of 237 entries, $96.6K prize pool
1st of 547 entries, $264.8K prize pool
2nd of 4950 entries, $2.5M prize pool
Andrew Rogers (Anchorage, Alaska)
#247
#128
+119
1st of 124 entries, $52.3K prize pool
3rd of 345 entries, $113.8K prize pool
18th of 3778 entries, $2.6M prize pool
3rd of 274 entries, $264.4K prize pool
Wayne Harmon (Portland, Oregon)
#155
#115
+40
24th of 1736 entries, $4.6M prize pool
12th of 2157 entries, $1.1M prize pool
13th of 1417 entries, $2.4M prize pool
2nd of 1103 entries, $414.5K prize pool
20th of 934 entries, $1.4M prize pool
Mel Hagen (Lanngley, British Columbia)
#349
#114
+235
20th of 2454 entries, $3.2M prize pool
4th of 3856 entries, $5.5M prize pool
2nd of 547 entries, $530.5K prize pool

Before last summer, Hagen hadn’t had a recorded cash since 2015. In addition to these, he had another 15 in 2023. So he appears to be back, baby.

Kao Saechao (Renton, Washington)
#193
#110
+83
1st of 477 entries, $329.1K prize pool
1st of 177 entries, $74.6K prize pool
1st of 357 entries, $55.3K prize pool
Andy Truong (Edmonton, Alberta)
#145
#104
+41
3rd of 1637 entries, $2.3M prize pool
18th of 3496 entries, $5.2M prize pool
Dien Le (Bellevue, Washington)
#109
#101
+8
11th of 2952 entries, $1M prize pool
3rd of 49 entries, $112.7K prize pool
2nd of 249 entries, $125.7K prize pool
1st of 226 entries, $60.9K prize pool
Aaron Thivyanathan (Renton, Washington)
#94
#80
+14
35th of 4747 entries, $3.3M prize pool
5th of 376 entries, $262.5K prize pool
Mark Mounsey (Victoria, British Columbia)
#3939
#84
+3855
8th of 3835 entries, $40M prize pool
Kyle Ho (Burnaby, British Columbia)
#86
#69
+17
4th of 228 entries, $134.9K prize pool
1st of 224 entries, $146.5K prize pool
6th of 224 entries, $330.5K prize pool
2nd of 321 entries, $147.1K prize pool
Lonnie Hallett (Big Valley, Alberta)
#424
#66
+358
1st of 8180 entries, $7.2M prize pool
Clemen Deng (Portland, Oregon)
#205
#64
+141
73rd of 10043 entries, $93.3M prize pool
5th of 125 entries, $380K prize pool
6th of 3496 entries, $5.2M prize pool
1st of 582 entries, $1M prize pool

Where the hell did Deng come from? No recorded cashes until the pandemic and then bang!

Karim Chatur (Calgary, Alberta)
#59
#56
+3
91st of 10043 entries, $93.3M prize pool
1st of 210 entries, $73.7K prize pool
Mike Kinney (Sand Point, Idaho)
#58
#51
+7
4th of 122 entries, $118.3K prize pool
3rd of 152 entries, $1.5M prize pool
Angela Jordison (Redmond, Oregon)
#60
#47
+13
1st of 101 entries, $303K prize pool
5th of 679 entries, $1M prize pool
5th of 212 entries, $206.7K prize pool
21st of 1598 entries, $4.2M prize pool
8th of 397 entries, $601.4K prize pool
Scott Eskenazi (Mercer Island, Washington)
#72
#42
+30
5th of 184 entries, $506K prize pool
1st of 590 entries, $1.8M prize pool
35th of 2076 entries, $2.7M prize pool

The win at Thunder Valley was the largest in Eskenazi’s long career.

Jaspal Brar (Edmonton, Alberta)
#44
#40
+4
2nd of 250 entries, $245K prize pool
Calvin Lee (Mercer Island, Washington)
#102
#38
+64
4th of 78 entries, $780K prize pool
9th of 346 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Noah Bronstein (Bellevue, Washington)
#35
#37
-2
6th of 331 entries, $883.7K prize pool
Thomas Taylor (Medicine hat, Alberta)
#37
#35
+2
1st of 234 entries, $161.7K prize pool
9th of 2017 entries, $1.7M prize pool
3rd of 338 entries, $323.1K prize pool
42nd of 3446 entries, $5.1M prize pool
Jeffrey Farnes (Dallas, Oregon)
#29
#29
0
4th of 184 entries, $506K prize pool
4th of 251 entries, $243.4K prize pool
Daniel Idema (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#25
#26
-1
2nd of 134 entries, $12.4M prize pool
Elliot Smith (Richmond, British Columbia)
#23
#25
-2
4th of 279 entries, $541.2K prize pool
1st of 48 entries, $50K prize pool
Maxwell Young (Oregon)
#24
#23
+1
16th of 1074 entries, $1.1M prize pool
8th of 327 entries, $580.4K prize pool
2nd of 1093 entries, $360.9K prize pool
4th of 257 entries, $178.6K prize pool
31st of 1598 entries, $4.2M prize pool
3rd of 483 entries, $470.9K prize pool
7th of 187 entries, $374K prize pool
4th of 62 entries, $186K prize pool
1st of 119 entries, $133.4K prize pool
Darren Rabinowitz (Mercer Island, Washington)
#20
#21
-1
4th of 180 entries, $145.9K prize pool
4th of 885 entries, $858.4K prize pool
2nd of 356 entries, $106.8K prize pool
4th of 180 entries, $145.9K prize pool
3rd of 315 entries, $147.1K prize pool
3rd of 477 entries, $1M prize pool
5th of 515 entries, $515K prize pool
2nd of 310 entries, $93K prize pool
1st of 436 entries, $392K prize pool
2nd of 146 entries, $138.7K prize pool
3rd of 550 entries, $530.9K prize pool
Tyler Patterson (Washington)
#19
#20
-1
2nd of 466 entries, $205.4K prize pool
1st of 477 entries, $1M prize pool
George Wolff (Portland, Oregon)
#18
#19
-1
6th of 86 entries, $860K prize pool
4th of 88 entries, $880K prize pool
Amichai Barer (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#16
#16
0
2nd of 149 entries, $71.6K prize pool
6th of 2234 entries, $2.1M prize pool
Dylan Wilkerson (Seattle, Washington)
#14
#15
-1
2nd of 564 entries, $389.1K prize pool
4th of 522 entries, $172.2K prize pool
Adam Walton (Seattle, Washington)
#64
#9
+55
3rd of 807 entries, $778.7K prize pool
3rd of 10043 entries, $93.3M prize pool
5th of 860 entries, $808.4K prize pool
2nd of 238 entries, $339.1K prize pool
11th of 3010 entries, $14.5M prize pool
Adam Hendrix (Anchorage, Alaska)
#13
#8
+5
3rd of 257 entries, $514K prize pool
3rd of 130 entries, $1.3M prize pool
3rd of 89 entries, $845K prize pool
5th of 200 entries, $9.5M prize pool
James Romero (Portland, Oregon)
#7
#6
+1
1st of 721 entries, $1M prize pool
6th of 441 entries, $996.6K prize pool
7th of 594 entries, $652.5K prize pool
26th of 2454 entries, $3.2M prize pool
69th of 2231 entries, $7.1M prize pool
7th of 1440 entries, $741.6K prize pool
2nd of 547 entries, $530.9K prize pool
13th of 746 entries, $1M prize pool
Dylan Linde (Coeur D’Alene, Idaho)
#5
#4
+1
1st of 114 entries, $313.5K prize pool
10th of 441 entries, $996.6K prize pool
1st of 286 entries, $271.7K prize pool

Linde had a number of other deep-ish runs in big buy-in events that ran into six figures each, but they didn’t meet my arbitrary 400% ROI metric for reporting.

Chris Brewer (Eugene, Oregon)
#4
#2
+2
1st of 33 entries, $1.1M prize pool
1st of 50 entries, $3.4M prize pool
3rd of 166 entries, $4.1M prize pool
3rd of 24 entries, $1.5M prize pool
2nd of 93 entries, $930K prize pool
6th of 87 entries, $1.3M prize pool
1st of 24 entries, $925K prize pool
2nd of 19 entries, $950K prize pool
3rd of 64 entries, $1.5M prize pool
1st of 69 entries, $17.1M prize pool
3rd of 51 entries, $510K prize pool
1st of 154 entries, $1.4M prize pool
2nd of 83 entries, $3M prize pool
2nd of 24 entries, $1.1M prize pool
4th of 91 entries, $910K prize pool
4th of 44 entries, $1.1M prize pool
4th of 50 entries, $1.2M prize pool
4th of 88 entries, $16.8M prize pool
4th of 90 entries, $6.8M prize pool
2nd of 29 entries, $290K prize pool

It was a good year to be Chris Brewer, A really good year.

Seth Davies (Bend, Oregon)
#1
#1
0
4th of 83 entries, $830K prize pool
2nd of 40 entries, $4.7M prize pool
7th of 97 entries, $3.3M prize pool
3rd of 35 entries, $1.2M prize pool
4th of 166 entries, $4.1M prize pool
7th of 122 entries, $2.5M prize pool
5th of 110 entries, $5.1M prize pool
3rd of 14 entries, $906.6K prize pool
2nd of 30 entries, $1M prize pool
5th of 124 entries, $5.9M prize pool
4th of 2068 entries, $4.6M prize pool
1st of 28 entries, $280K prize pool
5th of 69 entries, $3.3M prize pool
5th of 133 entries, $1.3M prize pool

And that’s it! It took a long time! Hope you enjoyed it.