Closed For the Season — August 2024

Final Table $20K GTD NLHE

It’s been a looooong time since I’ve cashed in one of these, and even longer since I had a significant cash in one, which is bad, because of the last 13 events I’ve played at Final Table, 10 of them have been their monthly First Friday $20K (the others were Friday night $10Ks and one special $40K).

I have to go back before the pandemic to May 2018 to an ICM deal to find something other than a min-cash in any of the $20Ks. Didn’t even make it that far in this one, where I was doing well until I got trapped by a guy who looked like an evil Kevmath who got a back-door 2 pair with five-deuce from the big blind to beat my ace-jack top pair in what started out as a raised multiway pot. All downhill from there. 134th out of 207.

Beaverton Quarantine

Five sessions of this home game on the PokerStars Lite platform. All NLHE, with two bounty games. Picked up a bounty but didn’t cash in the first one, bubbled the fourth, then made 2nd of 13 entries in the last one. Not enough to be in the black for this venue, though.

Puffmammy Home Game

The old gang got together for only the sixth time since the pandemic began (with the promise of more soon). I got off to a great start, stacking the same player twice but then ending up as the bubble after his third bullet pulled out aces versus my ace-king, taking a huge chunk out of my stack. I haven’t had a profit in this game since March 2020.

Portland Meadows Wild West Series Omaha Showdown

Probably should have taken the omens on this one seriously. I didn’t pay close enough attention to my Tri-Met Trip Planner and walked to Division instead of Belmont after work, which ended up with me getting to the 6pm game 20 minutes later than I’d planned.The Showdown was a 5-Card Omaha game, alternating between Hi and Hi-Lo. I lasted less than an orbit, flopping top two pair and turning a full house (tens full of queens) but running into queens full of tens. Congrats to Jen Barnard for the win. And to Meadows for their Saturday Pots o’ Gold tournament with nearly $93K in the prize pool for a $400 buy-in!

Chainsaw Poker

The saving grace for the month for me was Chainsaw Poker. Nine tournaments (3 x 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo, 2 x PLO Hi-Lo, 1 x PLO Hi-Lo Bounty, 2 x Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, 1 x 8-Game Mix); 3-way chop in PLO Hi-Lo, wins in Omaha Hi-Lo and 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo.

My last game of the month was one of the Stud Hi-Lo games. It hit 18 entries and by the time we were down to 9, I had a third of the chips in play and a 2:1 lead over the next largest stack. Nobody really got close for the rest of the final table, and heads-up started with me ahead about 8:1.The structures are pretty turbo, there were fewer than 20 big bets in play by that point, and the whole tournament only ran about 90 minutes.

Really loving the chance to play a variety of games in small fields. And that my record here for this month makes up for everything else and puts me in the black the first time in 2024.

Coming Up

Not absolutely sure what’s I’m doing this month, there’s a lot of family stuff coming up. But starting on the 13th, Meadows is running Friday night satellites to their $1K Main Event on October 12th, and there’s the Chinook Winds Fall Coast Poker Classic coming up September 21st to 29th. I might make the beginning or ending weekend, but no way I can take another week off for poker this year and definitely not this month.

Oh Lord! When? How? — June 2024

Las Vegas 2024

Sunday

This trip had been on the books for a couple of months. My long-time poker travel partner David had been making a lot of trips to Vegas for cash games and offered me part of a comped room at the Flamingo. Booked the flight on Alaska for a Sunday morning to Friday night with points; how could I not go?

David and I booked the same flights by sheer chance, so we met up at PDX early Sunday morning, split a ride to the Flamingo, and checked into the room early because of someone’s Diamond Plus status (not mine).

The view was pretty good, once you overlook the roof. I mean, we really overlooked the roof. My wife says the towers at Caesar’s Palace remind her of grain elevators.

We got settled in, then headed over to the Paris/Horseshoe complex. I’d pre-registered through Bravo Poker Live for WSOP Event #27 $1,500 Big O but needed to go through FasTrac verification. No line at the desk, got my tickets there, then wandered off to see where my table was.

Micah Bell stopped by my table before play started, telling me I should play better than I did when I knocked him out of a Big O tournament last December. Apparently, I didn’t take his words to heart, because I only lasted about three-and-a-half hours while Micah made it to Day 2. That was it for me for the day, though I did go get set up with a new WSOP.com account. I did have the honor of holding up the bottom of the chip counts because I was updating with the MyStack app from PokerNews

I was at the bottom of the listing even before I busted the Big O.

So that was an inauspicious beginning. Down $1,500 to start the week. Went back to the room and headed over to Ellis Island, where Dave picked up the bill for the $10 prime rib dinner at their restaurant.

Monday

The next event on my schedule wasn’t until the afternoon; Brad Press convinced me to head over to the Orleans Casino for a $30K GTD with a $300 buy-in that started at 11. Didn’t go great, managed to get tens in against queens and I was out before the end of re-entry.

The new-ish Milestone Satellite format they’re running for the mega satellites at the WSOP was something I hadn’t played, and I wasn’t sure how my style of play would work; I’m not usually a big stack until the end (if ever). As it happens, my first experience with it in the 3pm $250 buy-in (paying out $2K chunks) did not go well, with me buying out of Level 1 with 20 seconds to go. Tens again.

There were only 23 players in the satellite by then (it got up to 85 by the end) but I elected to jump into the Monday HORSE Deepstack, in preparation for Wednesday’s bracelet event. I lasted longer there (after waiting about thirty minutes for tables to open up), but nowhere near long enough.

Got back to the room too late to catch David for the prime rib dinner, and feeling a little burned by four straight whiffs, decided to fire up some low-stakes online action. Played a $500 GTD PLO 6-Max PKO through about half the field, then caught some wind in a $1K GTD NLHE 6-Max Super Turbo and came in fourth out of 82. Busted out of a $150 GTD PLO 6-Max Turbo and another NLHE 6-Max Super Turbo (with a $400 guarantee), so by the end of the day I was only down $2,264.

Tuesday

Tuesday was the second bracelet event I had on my list, the $1,500 Seven Card Stud. It’s the smallest-field bracelet event in my budget—only 406 entries this year—but I decided to pass it by for some smaller games. Struck out in a quick $1K GTD NLHE Turbo before I headed out to South Point Casino to meet up again with Brad before he headed home. I was hoping to pick up some of his turnaround energy—he’d had a bad few days on his trip before final tabling at South Point three times and once in a Milestone Satellite at Orleans.

I battled through about three-and-a-half hours of a $10K GTD NLHE tournament, making it past the end of registration and about 60% of the field before the end came (Brad went on to another final table; he also won a seat to their $50K Tournament of Champions Freeroll).

Late-registered the $4K GTD Omaha Hi-Lo that was about to begin and managed to bust in Level 4.

Back to the Horseshoe for the 7pm $580 NLHE Landmark Satellite. That only lasted 4 levels, too. Tens were once again my bane. Ended the day $3,064 in the hole.

Wednesday

Event #35 $1,500 HORSE didn’t start until 2pm, so I started the day started playing 0.10/0.20 PLO on WSOP.com. Clawed back $5. Jumped into a $1K GTD NLHE Turbo and made the final table out of 172 entries ($49). Just missed the money in the $1K NLHE Fast Mini Mystery Bounty but I picked up $6 in bounties. Busted the $750 GTD NLHE Deepstack Super Turbo, then took a bit of a flier on the $55 buy-in (all my buy-ins so far we’re $11 or less) $5K NLHE Fast Mystery Bounty, but only made it half-way through the field.

Shortly after the tournament began, one of the floor people pulled the chair out of seat 3 and maneuvered a fancier chair into place. Then Mike Matusow showed up and pointed a stick at the table and said “What’s your name?”

View from Table 53, Seat 1.

“Uh, me?” I managed to get out, not recognizing the box on the end of the stick as a camera.

“Yeah.”

“Uh, Darrel,” I said, using all the wit assigned to me at birth. Matusow then went around the table getting peoples’ names and said it would be online (still don’t have any idea where or if, so you can’t see me making a doofus of myself).

A repeat cash in HORSE was not to be. I don’t believe I ever managed to get above the starting stack, and a guy on my immediate right had me pipped on every hand where I thought I might be a winner, including one hard-contested Razz hand where he rivered a wheel on my A2346. Just could not beat him.

I got the full dose of the Mouth, more than four hours of complaints about how he’d only won 24 hands in the series up to that point, and some reactionary politics when Jeff Lisandro joined the table at the other end.

Back to the Flamingo after five-and-half hours, where David and I had a late dinner at Virgil’s on the LINQ Promenade. It was still warm outside according to the thermostat on the wall next to us.

THURsday

Back to the smaller stakes. Orleans had another $30K guarantee at 11am and I headed that way even though it was just Hold’em. It had a very late end to registration—about seven hours—and I only lasted about 4, but I did see one of those crazy hands that crop up all over Las Vegas during the summer: a four-way all-in pre flop that pitted jacks against queens against kings against aces. The aces somehow held to scoop.

I texted Brad to verify my decision on whether to play the Razz tournament that had just started or get back in the $30K with just 20bb. Razz it was. I figured it was time to start drinking.

Razz was another strike for me. Four more hours, made it through about half the field of 199. But overall a pretty pleasant experience. One of the players from my HORSE table who’d been sitting on the other side of Matusow was there, and I met the gregarious Carlos, who introduced me to an online group of mixed-game players. So, not an entirely fruitless day at the Orleans.

David had some free drink coupons as a valued Caesars Diamond member and had already picked up a Bailey’s slushy at O’Shea’s on the promenade, so we headed over to get three more. When we got back to the room, I jumped into a $55 $3K GTD NLHE PKO 6-Max Turbo, got a couple bounties then knocked out and re-entered to place 6th of 84. Not a huge profit, but something. Played a $150 GTD PLO 6-Max Turbo and a $500 GTD PLO PKO 6-Max, then min-cashed (17/158) a $1K GTD NLHE before I went to bed.

FRIday

My flight (and David’s) didn’t leave until after 8pm. I’d noted that when Brad made the final tables of his South Point events, it was six-ish, so I figured that if I made it to the money in their morning event I should have just enough time to get to the airport.

Reasonably certain I got angled on my second hand when a player tossed in 5100 (still at 100/200) with a “Did I do that?” speech. I shoved my A9s and he had AQ. It was back to registration.

Four and a half hours in with 18bb, I squeezed from the SB with A7s over there lines. One of the limps was 99, he called, I hit the ace on the turn. When I texted back to Brad about the hand, his response was “Stop it!!! You’re killing me”.

By the time we got to the bubble at 36 players, my stack was down to 18bb, but that was still 150% of the average. It wasn’t exactly a leisurely structure.

I mostly folded for the next 40 minutes, drifting down to 11bb—though that was still above the chip average. Then just before the break, I picked up TT on the button, two short stacks before me shove, and I swoop in to the pot against a lower pair and a ragged ace. I hit a set on the flop to seal the deal.

Next orbit after the break, QQ on the button and I double up to 700K after making a full house against T9s.

The inflection point for me was another 20 minutes on, about six hours into the game, when I 3-bet QT of clubs and the table chip leader shoved. It folded back to me and I thought about it for longer than usual, then put my trust in the Portland Nuts and called against AK. Two clubs on the flop and another on the turn, and I was over a million chips.

We were still at 14 players and it was creeping closer to the time I was going to have to start thinking about making it to the airport. Action went fast, though, and in just ten minutes we were down to the final table. Half an hour later, we were at 5. We had a break and an ICM chop was proposed. There was a little tussling about who’d win the seat into South Point’s Tournament of Champions, but the rules said it had to go to the person with the most chips at the time of any deal and that they’d penalize people if they thought there was any dumping going on.

Anyway, it took a few minutes to run the numbers. I came out on top by just 0.3%. Plus, I got the ToC seat that I can’t play because I’ve got a thing in Portland that day. The list of eligible players was just posted, with 158 names on it. There’s $50K guaranteed with $10K up top and 60 places paid, so the EV’s pretty high to start with and with people like myself not able to make it, even better.

It didn’t come anywhere close to wiping out the losses from the first five days, but it did stanch the bleeding a bit so the losses were basically down the cost of the two bracelet events.

Other Poker for June

The week before Vegas, I just played a couple of the Beaverton Quarantine home games, then three more in the weeks after I got back. They were a complete loss.

The only other live poker for the month was the Portland Meadows NLHE 50/50 Bounty, where half the buy-in goes into your bounty. I came in late and watched a guy who’d open-jammed twice with 40bb. I raised the queen-ten on my first playable hand and he jammed a third time. I snapped it off and doubled up versus nines. Didn’t quite make it to the money, but I did take a bounty.

My new poker venue is a private online club with nothing but mixed games, 1- or 2-table fields for the most part, running six or seven tournaments like Razz, Badugi, 5-Card PLO, Stud8, 8-Game, PLO8, 2-7 Triple Draw, and more. I love it, though I’m only 1 for 10 so far.

#PNWPokerLeaderboard: I’m Not Human, I’m a Mutant

For more than seven years now, I’ve been running the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard in one form or another. First as a series of write-ups of manually-selected standout players from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and eventually as a list that included everyone who fit my criteria and including players from British Columbia, Alberta, and Alaska.

Throughout that time, the Leaderboard was made possible by a certain amount of automation. I wrote a routine that pulled in data from The Hendon Mob‘s state and province leaderboards, then stuffed the player and income data into a database which allowed me to compare earnings over time to see who’d made the most money since the last Leaderboard.

The Leaderboard suffered only one major snag (apart from the amount of time it still took to put things together after the routine had done its thing), a few years ago when THM slightly modified the code of the leaderboard pages and the routine choked. I had to make a decision then whether to spend the time to figure out how to fix it or not. I did it.

Then last year, I kind of ran out of steam myself as I was playing less and less often. I said it was the end, then lit it back up at the first of the year.

But I think we’ve reached the end of the journey for real this time. Not because I’ve given up on poker, I was just down in Las Vegas (as you can see above), not because I don’t want to talk about all the people cashing big-time in the first month of this year’s WSOP. Nope, it’s a CAPTCHA issue. Hendon Mob has implemented a tool to prevent robots from crawling their site scraping information, as is their right. It’s been a fun project, but there’s no way forward. My apologies to anyone who was hoping to see their 2024 WSOP cashes represented.

Uptempo Venomous Poison — May 2024

May turned out to be the calm before the storm of the WSOP for me. I only played nine tournaments the whole month, with most of those being in the virtual Beaverton Quarantine home game (four cashes, in NLHE and NLHE Bounty) for a meagre 126% ROI. The loss (bigger) came from the three events I entered at the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, though I did manage to pick up one min-bounty in Event #6 PLO Assassins PKO Bounty (the entire prize pool was bounties!)

That leaves either well-rested or unprepared for next weekend’s trip to Las Vegas, where the bracelet events on my list are Event #27 Big O, Event #32 Seven-Card Stud, and Event #35 HORSE (the only bracelet event I’ve ever cashed in). Plusdepending on how things gosome of the Milestone Satellites and the Monday HORSE Deepstack. Maybe something on WSOP.com if I can figure out how screwed up my account is after six years of inactivity.

Chinook Winds Debuts Summer Series

Earlier, as I as getting ready to publish this, Chinook Winds dropped the schedule for their first Summer Classic Poker Tournament, featuring a $200K GTD Main Event and a mid-week TORSE event (with Limit Triple Draw 2-7 replacing Limit Hold’em in the rotation).

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.
Katie Thurston (Lynnwood, Washington)
#3235
1st of 78 entries, $50K prize pool

Nice score for a first score! Thurston was the star of Season 17 of The Bachelorette, for those of you like myself not in the know.

Jayd Cartner (Vancouver, Washington)
#2881
2nd of 160 entries, $128K prize pool
Martin Owens (Spokane, Washington)
#2331
1st of 406 entries, $158.2K prize pool

Another extremely good first hendon Mob cash. Nice to be going into the summer with that.

Maksim Chirva (Mount Vernon, Washington)
#4872
#2182
+2690
2nd of 441 entries, $126.6K prize pool
Saul Kalvari (Richmond, British Columbia)
#4826
#1687
+3139
1st of 727 entries, $238.5K prize pool
Larry Vincent (Lewiston, Idaho)
#2911
#1293
+1618
1st of 558 entries, $270K prize pool

There appears to have been a thre-way chop in theis event, with Matthew Jewett, and David Goodkin (both further down/up the Leaderboard).

Tyler Panas (Calgary, Alberta)
#2193
#1271
+922
8th of 911 entries, $1M prize pool

Panas debuted on the Leaderboard just last month and continues to climb fast.

Valiant Chou (Richmond, Washington)
#1856
#1134
+722
4th of 558 entries, $270K prize pool
Tomi Varghase (Calgary, Alberta)
#1882
#1009
+873
5th of 911 entries, $1M prize pool
Matthew Kelly (Hillsboro, Oregon)
#1344
#1001
+343
1st of 441 entries, $126.6K prize pool
Shawn Smith (Molalla, Oregon)
#976
3rd of 3585 entries, $1.4M prize pool

While everyone was watching Adam Nattress in Event #4 (see below), Mollala’s Smith snuck through nearly 3,600 other players to grab an exceptionally good first Hendon Mob cash.

Shawn Smith (via WSOP.com)
Foster Geng (Kirkland, Washington)
#822
1st of 572 entries, $554.8K prize pool

Kind of a late report—the event was back in March—but another great start to the season.

Foster Geng (via Hendon Mob)
Peter Darlington (Calgary, Alberta)
#1516
#782
+734
1st of 1101 entries, $264K prize pool
David Goodkin (Bellevue, Washington)
#1043
#728
+315
3rd of 558 entries, $270K prize pool
John Scalise (Calgary, Alberta)
#2741
#683
+2058
2nd of 911 entries, $1M prize pool
Angel Iniquez (Richland, Washington)
#776
#630
+146
2nd of 406 entries, $158.2K prize pool
Brett Worton (Edmonton, Alberta)
#721
#598
+123
3rd of 249 entries, $159.2K prize pool
Peter Griffin (Fort McMurray, Alberta)
#731
#551
+180
1st of 249 entries, $159.2K prize pool
Jackson Spencer (Yakima, Washington)
#614
#476
+138
1st of 160 entries, $128K prize pool
David Labchuk (Calgary, Alberta)
#651
#400
+251
4th of 911 entries, $1M prize pool
Adam Nattress (Portland, Oregon)
#617
#392
+225
4th of 928 entries, $1.2M prize pool

Word went out on Day 2 that Adam was in the top 10% of the players at the end of Day 1. Then he powered his way to a not-insignificant lead by the end of Day 2. But the headline on the day-end wrap-up mentioned Jamie Kerstetter and “Miami” John Cernuto (and had pictures of both of them) but no Nattress. I knew Adam was too nice a guy to make anything out of it, but Karen-ed the heck out of it.

The Day 3 opening report had a pic of Adam but his name was initially missing from the headline. It was corrected relatively soon. Squeaky wheels, folks! You only get into these positions very rarely; make sure you get the credit you deserve!

Jeff Eldred (Calgary, Alberta)
#415
#380
+35
2nd of 249 entries, $159.2K prize pool
Zeyu Huang (Calgary, Alberta)
#690
#352
+338
3rd of 911 entries, $1M prize pool
Garrett Maybery (Edmonton, Alberta)
#410
#340
+70
2nd of 151 entries, $217K prize pool
Dongwoo Ko (Burnaby, British Columbia)
#753
#161
+592
1st of 882 entries, $2M prize pool
Pei Li (Calgary, Alberta)
#165
#160
+5
3rd of 151 entries, $217K prize pool
Dominick French (Victoria, British Columbia)
#122
#116
+6
1st of 13 entries, $68.5K prize pool
Yunkyu Song (Camas, Washington)
#115
#114
+1
4th of 735 entries, $2.2M prize pool
Mal Hagan (Langley, British Columbia)
#114
#111
+3
2nd of 1101 entries, $264K prize pool
Brent Sheirbon (Seattle, Washington)
#112
#105
+7
2nd of 263 entries, $315.2K prize pool
Matthew Jewett (Shoreline, Washington)
#108
#99
+9
2nd of 558 entries, $270K prize pool
Aaron Thivyanathan (Renton, Washington)
#78
#73
+5
3rd of 476 entries, $464.1K prize pool
Kyle Ho (Burnaby, British Columbia)
#72
#69
+3
1st of 236 entries, $150.3K prize pool
Maxwell Young (Seaside, Oregon)
#22
#22
0
2nd of 304 entries, $156.5K prize pool
Adam Hendrix (Anchorage, Alaska)
#6
#5
+1
3rd of 603 entries, $2.1M prize pool
Dylan Linde (Coeur D’Alene, Idaho)
#4
#3
+1
3rd of 116 entries, $580K prize pool
7th of 1869 entries, $5.9M prize pool
5th of 151 entries, $3M prize pool
3rd of 53 entries, $2.6M prize pool
3rd of 41 entries, $1.2M prize pool
Chris Brewer (Eugene, Oregon)
#2
#2
0
3rd of 135 entries, $3.3M prize pool

2024 Chinook Winds PacWest Poker Classic, Cashless

Event #9 $10,000 Guaranteed HORSE

I always look forward to HORSE tournaments because I get so few opportunities to play them. My only WSOP bracelet tournament cash is a min-cash in the 2021 HORSE event that Norman Chad bubbled. But this was not to be another one.

Since the tournament didn’t start until 4pm, I headed to the Tillamook Air Museum, housed in the only one of the WWII blimp hangers left in the nation. It’s full of planes, including some replicas of fighters from a century ago that somehow only weighed as much as I do.

The tournament went well for just about four hours, I was cruising along until three devastating hands in Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo took me from 15 big bets (well above average in the aggressive structure) down to 5BB, then I was run down on the river holding aces up by a flush.

Brad (First Friend of the Blog) Press was still in, though, and he maintained a decent chip stack through to the money, then crabbed his way up on the final table. Smaller stacks were busting out quickly with the chip average under 3 big bets, and a double elimination left him as the short stack between two equal-ish big stacks. He had a rolled-up pair in the last hand of Stud Hi-lo, took third place when it didn’t hold up, and so far I’m ahead in our $5/5% swap for the series.

Playing Big O as I’m typing this!

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.