Theme From… — April 2024

Another month of nothing good to report! 14 shots at the Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go, just 3 cashes and none of them any higher payout than 2x buy-in. I got a couple of tickets from America’s Cardroom for satellites and a ticket from Ignition for their $2500 GTD Freeroll and nothing came of those.

Just a min-cash in one of three Beaverton Quarantine home game bounty tournaments (and a bare bounty in another), plus three bricks in non-bounty tournaments. Thankfully, those aren’t expensive.

After a five-month hiatus, I went back to the Final Table $20K GTD NLHE First Friday tournament, where I only made it though half the field, but had a very nice interaction about the blog with Brian Barker, who won a quarter-million in a World Poker Tour tournament last fall (as well as a bunch of other stuff). It was a fun evening, but too short.

Capped off the month trying to catch the lightning in a bottle at the Portland Meadows Big Bet Mix 6-Max. I’d taken second somehow last fall but only made it to 25th this time, doing quite well sitting with the likes of Jeremy Harkin and Joe Brandenburg, then less well sitting with my nemesis Butcher.

Next week is the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, of which I’m planning to play the Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday events. (Wheel of Chaos, baby!) Not sure what the rest of May holds, but I’m just over a month out from my trip to the World Series of Poker.

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

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.
Tyler Panas (Calgary, Alberta)
#2193
2nd of 257 entries, $179.9K prize pool
Erik Backlund (Calgary, Alberta)
#6281
#2029
+4252
1st of 257 entries, $179.9K prize pool
Rahul Karpy (Portland, Oregon)
#5285
#1977
+3308
6th of 3505 entries, $865.7K prize pool
Andrew Goosen (Port Coquitlam, British Columbia)
#1845
2nd of 1380 entries, $339.4K prize pool
Brian Monigold (Spokane Valley, Washington)
#7098
#1670
+5428
5th of 968 entries, $968K prize pool
Steven Williams (Hood River, Oregon)
#685
#564
+121
2nd of 330 entries, $181.5K prize pool
Taran Parmar (Edmonton, Alberta)
#956
#471
+485
6th of 682 entries, $2.5M prize pool
Ali Razzaq (Edmonton, Alberta)
#516
#427
+89
3rd of 257 entries, $179.9K prize pool
Alejandro Madrigal (Umatilla, Oregon)
#542
#383
+159
2nd of 409 entries, $368.1K prize pool
Landen Lucas (Portland, Oregon)
#266
#242
+24
12th of 293 entries, $1.3M prize pool
Stuart Young (Portland, Oregon)
#293
#235
+58
7th of 4489 entries, $2.3M prize pool
Landon Brown (Kent, Washington)
#312
#194
+118
1st of 840 entries, $277.2K prize pool
2nd of 1180 entries, $607.7K prize pool
Yunkyu Song (Camas, Washington)
#160
#115
+45
4th of 735 entries, $2.2M prize pool
Clemen Deng (Portland, Oregon)
#64
#50
+14
6th of 104 entries, $1M prize pool
1st of 49 entries, $245K prize pool
Maxwell Young (Oregon)
#22
#22
0
4th of 3163 entries, $897.8K prize pool
Dylan Linde (Coeur D’Alene, Idaho)
#4
#4
0
1st of 81 entries, $781.5K prize pool
3rd of 116 entries, $580K prize pool
1st of 1869 entries, $5.9M prize pool

What’s That Spell?…Go To Hell! — March 2024

Another month in the red, though I briefly had hopes for this one.

No need to recap all of the thrill of min-victory and the agony of defeat at the Chinook Winds PacWest Poker Classic in the middle of the month, it’s all right here if you want to read about it.

I cashed 7 out of 17 Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go tournaments, with just one of the winners being a 5x payout, which means…exactly $0 profit.

Because I spent an entire week at Chinook Winds, no other live play for me, though I did play five Beaverton Quarantine games via PokerStars Home Games, min-cashing a 10-player NLHE game and winning a NLHE Bounty tournament with three bounties (including my own) for a whopping 320% ROI. Not enough to cover my losses at the PacWest series!

What II’m looking at in the month(s) ahead:

  • Maybe this week’s Final Table First Friday $20K GTD NLHE.
  • Possibly the Last Frontier NLHE Freezeout on Sunday, April 7th.
  • The Final Table $30K GTD NLHE on April 27th.
  • Or the Portland Meadows Big Bet Mix April 28th.
  • There’s a whole bunch of fun coming up May 6th–12th at the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, though I’m going to have to skip their High Roller because I’ve got tickets to see Michelle Wolf. And I can only do the evening games because, you know…job.
  • I’ve booked my flight to the WSOP already. Got a lot of $2K and $5K satellites on my menu, along with HORSE, Seven Card Stud, and Big O,

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

Due to some fast reporting by the Chinook Winds tournament officials, this edition of the Leaderboard includes the big results from the recent PacWest Poker Classic!

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.
Ryan Olin (Huslia, Alaska)
#2634
20th of 1180 entries, $3.7M prize pool
Jonathan Erickson (Salem, Oregon)
#8040
#2557
+5483
1st of 286 entries, $116.6K prize pool
Ryan Peterson (Albany, Oregon)
#7371
#2262
+5109
3rd of 441 entries, $306.9K prize pool
Khoa Ngo (Lakewood, Washington)
#2821
#1729
+1092
1st of 82 entries, $69.5K prize pool
Jerry O’Keefe (Bend, Oregon)
#6205
#1534
+4671
2nd of 441 entries, $306.9K prize pool
Jolnar Teliani (Edmonton, Alberta)
#2160
#1194
+966
2nd of 282 entries, $208.8K prize pool
Barry Frey (Medicine Hat, Alberta)
#3413
#1128
+2285
1st of 282 entries, $208.8K prize pool
Andrew Brunette (Woodland, Washington)
#1651
#1109
+542
2nd of 629 entries, $175.1K prize pool
Wille Scott (Courtenay, British Columbia)
#1106
2nd of 346 entries, $506.3K prize pool
Joe Gates (Burns, Oregon)
#1919
#1092
+827
5th of 3180 entries, $1M prize pool
Steven Boyd (Albany, Oregon)
#1537
#999
+538
2nd of 339 entries, $203.3K prize pool

Boyd cracks the top 1,000 with a cash back in December that—ahem—didn’t get reported to The Hendon Mob until relatively recently.

Kale Satta-Hutton (Portland, Oregon)
#2094
#870
+1224
1st of 441 entries, $306.9K prize pool
Antonio Ma (Calgary, Alberta)
#682
2nd of 133 entries, $144K prize pool

Ma comes into the Leaderboard as a new entry, though he has another, larger score at WSOPC Thunder Valley in January.

Jason Heang (Edmonton, Alberta)
#669
3rd of 282 entries, $208.8K prize pool

This is Heang’s debut on the Leaderboard, though he has a couple other cashes that would have qualified him last year when I wasn’t keeping the Leaderboard updated.

Sterling Lopez (Anchorage, Alaska)
#502
#425
+77
3rd of 984 entries, $196.8K prize pool
Aaron Quon (Richmond, British Columbia)
#587
#411
+176
2nd of 309 entries, $311.7K prize pool
Scott Lake (Bremerton, Washington)
#1034
#404
+630
3rd of 47 entries, $470K prize pool

Lake had a cash the previous day in the Triple Stud Mix event, but not enough ROI to qualify for the Leaderboard.

Yunkyu Song (Camas, Washington)
#231
#160
+71
4th of 458 entries, $1.4M prize pool
Andrew Rodgers (Anchorage, Alaska)
#111
#86
+25
1st of 748 entries, $725.5K prize pool
Kyle Ho (Burnaby, British Columbia)
#71
#72
-1
2nd of 253 entries, $151.1K prize pool
Chad Wassmuth (Lewiston, Washington)
#75
#68
+7
2nd of 1272 entries, $1.8M prize pool
Kao Saechao (Damascus, Oregon)
#41
#42
-1
1st of 629 entries, $175.1K prize pool
Mike Kinney (Sand Point, Idaho)
#51
#39
+12
2nd of 458 entries, $1.4M prize pool
Maxwell Young (Oregon)
#23
#22
+1
1st of 264 entries, $264K prize pool
Adam Hendrix (Anchorage, Alaska)
#8
#6
+2
5th of 1659 entries, $2.5M prize pool
8th of 132 entries, $660K prize pool
1st of 81 entries, $243K prize pool
Chris Brewer (Eugene, Oregon)
#2
#2
0
6th of 124 entries, $3.8M prize pool
8th of 139 entries, $21.6M prize pool
Seth Davies (Bend, Oregon)
#1
#1
0
3rd of 82 entries, $3.7M prize pool
3rd of 33 entries, $1.3M prize pool
1st of 72 entries, $1.8M prize pool

Davies had six other cashes in the Triton Jeju series (for a total of eight cashes in seventeen events) each large enough to put most players’ career winnings to shame, but their ROI was less than 400%, so they do not appear on the Leaderboard.

Hail Hail Spit N’ Drool — January 2024

This year’s not off to the banger of a start that last year was, with a four-figure win to start things off. This has been a down month, mostly due to my entry in the Portland Meadows All the Drawmaha tournament.

January started off with a couple of losses in the Beaverton Quarantine Zoom games I play; perhaps my NLHE senses are a bit off. Then it was a bubble in the old home game, which I didn’t mind so much as it was the first game with those guys in quite a while.

Pulled myself out of the hole with the next week’s Quarantine games (NLHE and PLO8 Bounty). Then dropped a chunk in the Drawmaha tournament and never got back to black.

Played 30 Ignition $2 NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Gos, down four buyins even with two $10 cashes.

And that’s the start of the new year. Coming up in February on my personal calendar is a Freezeout tournament at Last Frontier, and the Portland Poker Winter Royale, two games each at Meadows and Final Table. There are a couple of big games at the Little Creek Spring South Sound Series in early March that are intriguing as well, and of course, the PacWest Poker Classic at Chinook Winds is coming up in just five weeks!

PacWest Poker Classic schedule

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

It’s the first Leaderboard of the year! Technically, I did put out a Leaderboard early in January, but this is there first one covering events that took place in 2024, so first of the year. I’ve upped the inclusion criteria slightly, with $20,000 (US dollar equivalent) as the cutoff (also, only listing events with an ROI of 400% or more). The reason is, with longer periods between Leaderboards, the number of players who meet the requirements increases more or less geometrically (twice as long between events means roughly twice as many entries). Otherwise, I’d be here until March.

Lots of news out of Canada this installment, as World Series of Poker Circuit Calgary ran from January 10–22, more or less at the same time as WSOPC Northern California.

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.
Tom Lobas (Calgary, Alberta)
#4280
6th of 1715 entries, $423K prize pool
Akshat Bajaj (Calgary, Alberta)
#5251
#2411
+2840
18th of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
David Cox (Kamloops, British Columbia)
#1989
4th of 481 entries, $313.9K prize pool
Andrew Goosen (Port Coquitlam, British Columbia)
#6937
#1842
+5095
2nd of 1380 entries, $339.4K prize pool
Abe Shawile (Edmonton, Alberta)
#4747
#1621
+3126
5th of 1715 entries, $423K prize pool
6th of 346 entries, $506.3K prize pool
Derek Dufour (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#2210
#1206
+1004
3rd of 1715 entries, $423K prize pool
Arif Dhalla (Richmond, British Columbia)
#3841
#1180
+2661
6th of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Steven Desjarlais (Nanaimo, British Columbia)
#1475
#1101
+374
6th of 481 entries, $313.9K prize pool
Mark Aylward-Nally (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#1127
#887
+240
12th of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Robert Lothian (Sherwood Park, Alberta)
#1087
#881
+206
5th of 481 entries, $313.9K prize pool
Dongwoo Ko (Burnaby, British Columbia)
#1131
#846
+285
1st of 454 entries, $112K prize pool
Jackson Spencer (Yakima, Washington)
#1189
#831
+358
2nd of 209 entries, $107.6K prize pool
4th of 728 entries, $240.2K prize pool
Zeyu Huang (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#997
#803
+194
21st of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Michael Mcwhirter (Vancouver, British Columbia)
#960
#781
+179
11th of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
David Li (Victoria, British Columbia)
#772
1st of 346 entries, $506.3K prize pool

Not bad for a first Hendon Mob cash.

Hasanain Al Ghunaim (Calgary, Alberta)
#5770
#570
+5200
2nd of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Kevin Kammavong (Calgary, Alberta)
#691
#568
+123
4th of 1715 entries, $423K prize pool
Garett Maybery (Edmonton, Alberta)
#738
#436
+302
5th of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Landon Brown (Kent, Washington)
#453
#369
+84
5th of 586 entries, $568.4K prize pool
Kaylen Labaron (Anchorage, Alaska)
#764
#337
+427
2nd of 742 entries, $1.1M prize pool
Nicholas Lee (Calgary, Alberta)
#276
#252
+24
1st of 434 entries, $66.4K prize pool
Yunkyu Song (Camas, Washington)
#1248
#248
+1000
3rd of 3486 entries, $2.4M prize pool
9th of 689 entries, $3.3M prize pool
Zhun Rui Chen (Calgary, Alberta)
#930
#229
+701
1st of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Bashar Ramahi (Sturgeon County, Alberta)
#131
#118
+13
3rd of 346 entries, $506.3K prize pool
Victorino Torres (Idaho)
#114
4th of 550 entries, $530.9K prize pool

Torres’s profile lists then as being from the Northern Marianas Islands, ID, which seems almost as fishy as Preban Stokkan being from Corvallis.

Dien Le (Bellevue, Washington)
#101
#97
+4
2nd of 339 entries, $111.8K prize pool
Lonnie Hallett (Big Valley, Alberta)
#66
#66
0
10th of 1475 entries, $1.6M prize pool
Dan Martin (Klamath Falls, Oregon)
#118
#65
+53
2nd of 1188 entries, $3.8M prize pool

First Hendon Mob cash since the beginning of the pandemic for Martin (his most recent was 14 march 2020), the result of a deal with Raminder Singh and Jesse Lonis.

Maxwell Young (Seaside, Oregon)
#23
#23
0
1st of 161 entries, $80.5K prize pool
Darren Rabinowitz (Mercer Island, Washington)
#21
#21
0
3rd of 550 entries, $530.9K prize pool
James Romero (Portland, Oregon)
#6
#6
0
8th of 586 entries, $568.4K prize pool
Dylan Linde (Coeur D’Alene, Idaho)
#4
#4
0
4th of 82 entries, $820K prize pool
Chris Brewer (Eugene, Oregon)
#2
#2
0
4th of 178 entries, $169.1K prize pool
Seth Davies (Bend, Oregon)
#1
#1
0
3rd of 82 entries, $820K prize pool
3rd of 63 entries, $945K prize pool
5th of 70 entries, $1M prize pool

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.