I was looking at the sweet, sweet trophy Stuart Young won at the Bend Poker Room Monster Stack Main Event at the end of the month and realizing that there weren’t any trophies given out at the Chinook Winds Fall Coast Poker Classic.

When John Gribben and I chopped the second of the $50K GTD tournaments heads-up the second night of the series, my original suggestion was to make a deal, then play out for a set amount. Tournament Director Matthew Moring said that was a no-go, any deal immediately ended the tournament (my suspicion was that had more to do with it being 5am than a hard and fast rule), so John and I agreed to an even chop. I asked for the win, John said he would like to get the picture because it was his first big win (and he’d pay me a little bit extra). I haven’t actually ever had a winner photo for a big tournament myself, and as it was, Matt took a couple of photos of the both of us as well as John by himself, and this is the one that ended up getting sent out.

But no trophy. If there had been or if there had been a casino championship on the line (as ther is for a World Series of Poker Circuit series or at the upcoming Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up, the decision would have had to be a bit different. How much—if anything—would the trophy be worth to me in the negotiation? Do I care about the win on my Hendon Mob profile? Do I want to be known as being involved in only the third-most-egregious thing that Will Kassouf did?

Do Player of the Year, Global Poker Index, or—most importantly—series champion points matter to me? If there’s a monetary reward (as at Wildhorse) or some other benefit that accrues to top performers (the Global Casino Championship contenders on the WSOPC Leaderboard can attend for free), then a friendly chop is not going to happen (#TeamNoChop c/o Angela Jordison).

Just for kicks, I went through and assigned points to players in the Fall Coast Poker Classic using the WSOP Circuit system for non-Main Event tournaments.

1st – 50 points

2nd – 37.5 points

3rd – 30 points

4th – 27.5 points

5th – 25 points

6th – 22.5 points

7th – 20 points

8th – 17.5 points

9th – 15 points

Remaining 20% of those in the money – 10 points

Remaining 30% of those in the money – 5 points

Remaining 50% of those in the money – 2.5 points

I didn’t count the Fall Coast Classic Main Event with the same point system as the WSOPC Main Events because it doesn’t automatically get the winner into anything (the winner at each WSOPC stop is automatically free-rolled into the Global Poker Championship) and because the price disparity between most of the events isn’t as great as at a WSOPC stop. My preference here would be to average out the points assigned to position in the case of chops, but the WSOP doesn’t do that. So here goes!

First off are the folks who won events without accruing any other points: That’s 50 points each for Casey Ring (Main Event), Adam Schneider (Monday evening $10K GTD freeze-out with an 11-way chop), Alex Kuzarov (#22 $40K GTD with a 6-way deal), Robert Fitzgerald (#11 $10K GTD HORSE with what looks like a 6-way deal), Robert Squires (#14 O8, maybe another 6-way deal), Tri Ton (#1 $125K GTD), and Jason Heiner (#7 $40K GTD 6-max, looks like a 4-way ICM chop). Andy Su won #2 ($50K GTD), Michael Mackie got 50 points for #10 ($30K GTD Seniors, some sort of FT deal), Gilbert Marquez got 1st in #18 ($25K GTD Big O, 3-way deal involving—oh, no!—Angela, how could you?), and Dan Anderson took 50 for #21 ($150K GTD High Roller).

Two players won a tournament and min-cashed another (2.5 points): Carl Oman won #17 ($40K GTD Big Bounty) and cashed the 6-Max; John Gribben won #5 (see above) and cashed the Main.

Richard Imel took 11th in #5 (5 points) and won #13 Super Boss Bounty for 55 points. Bohr He and Kevin Buck are the first players in this list who did not win an event but have more points than some of the players who did. Buck made the final table of #1, took third in #5, and cashed in #17. He was also at the final table for #5, took 6th in the 6-Max, and 9th in the Main Event. Jake Dahl final-tabled #14 HORSE, placed 3rd in $14 O8. and picked up 15th in the Main Event for his 55 points.

Cody Rogan was the third-place finisher for points with 57.5. He started strong with 4th place in #1, placed 4th again in #8, and min-cashed in #13 to pull just ahead of the rest of the pack.

Michael Freedom is the runner-up in points with 65 after a 2nd-place in #10 (Seniors) and 4th in #22. 37.5 for the former and 27.5 for the latter.

And the champeen is Graham Adam Duke, who picked up an remarkable 82.5 points, well ahead of the pack. Duke did not win a single event, but he made three deep runs, coming in 3rd in #2, 9th in #7 (which would be a final table except it was the 6-max), and runner-up in #21, the High Roller.

UPDATE: Announcement at the start of play that the 60-minute dinner break will be after Level 6 of the Main Event instead of Level 8.

When I got news yesterday that ’70s (& ’80s!) pop star Eddie Money passed away at the age of 70, my thought was of the only time I saw him in concert, at the first-ever concert held at Eugene’s Autzen Stadium, which had The Grateful Dead and Santana as headliners, with country-rockers The Outlaws and newly-minted star Eddie Money as opening acts. Kind of sobering to think that when he did that concert, he was half my current age.

Some high-school buddies and I decided to go. Checking back on the date—41 years ago in the summer of 1978—I’m not really sure if I needed to convince my parents to let me go (I was about to start my senior year in high school and I’m pretty sure it was my first rock concert), but maybe the fact that it was in the daytime and an open-air stadium worked in my favor. My buddies Chris Lee and Jon Pitchford were there, I was wearing a red t-shirt with a metallic silver unicorn applique on it (I was there for the Dead) from the science-fiction and fantasy book/game shop where I got my Dungeons & Dragons stuff (and which would be my employer for four nears starting the next spring). Somewhere I might still have the photo of the crowd that ran on the front page of the Eugene Register-Guard where I think I was able to spot the red dot of my shirt amongst the sea of people.

Nobody I knew listened to Eddie Money (or The Outlaws, for that matter) but his first album was ubiquitous that year, in a way that music really could be before the streaming era, MP3s, MTV, CDs, or event the Walkman, which didn’t come out until a year later. So you knew the standards by ear even if you weren’t listening to them. Anyway, RIP, Eddie!

Payouts in the High Roller

I busted out of Event #22 $40K NLHE just before the money in a hand I misplayed. We’d gone to dinner break with just under four tables, and I’d nearly doubled up just before the break to an average stack We had about a dozen players to go before the money. Our table was seven-handed, and when it folded to me on the first hand after break, I opened Q♣J♠ to 10K from UTG2 (big blind was 4K). Everyone folded. So far so good. 100K in my stack, 25bb.

The second hand I picked up T♠T♣. UTG opened to 10K. I should have re-raised, but I was trying to be cautious of the big stacks behind me. UTG didn’t have me covered by a lot, but some of the players left to act were several times my depth. So I just called. First mistake. Everyone else folded.

The flop wasn’t horrible: Qx9x6x. Don’t remember suits, just that it was a rainbow. UTG checked and I checked behind. Second mistake.

The turn looks great: T♦ UTG bets, I shove and he instacalls with KxJx of course. All the luck in the world will not get the board to pair, and I blow out in 29th place, just eight spots from the cash. So aggravating.

Anyway, the only event left on the schedule is Saturday’s Event #24 $250K GTD NLHE Main Event.

Starting stack is 40K (including the optional $25 10K dealer appreciation chips). Levels are 50 minutes on Day 1, with breaks every two levels. Breaks are 15 minutes long, except for the third and fourth breaks. Registration ends (no re-entry) at the end of the 30-minute break 3 (after Level 6). There’s a 60 minute dinner break after Level 8.

At the end of registration is a $200 addon for 30K in chips.

The first level starts with everyone 400bb deep, with the starting stack decreasing to 200bb in Level 2, 133bb in Level 3, then for Levels 4, 5, and 6: 100bb, 66bb, and 50bb, respectively. With the relatively large addon, A fresh starting stack will be 70bb.

One thing I like to do is compare the rate of increase in the big blind, or cost of level. If you figure the cost of maintaining at a particular level relates to the amount, you can see the levels where the structure ratchets up the pain for the short stacks. Below is a chart showing the structure from after the addon (Level 6) to after dinner on Day 2, including comparisons of how fast the big blind increases compared to the increase of the cost of a round (CoR).

An increase of 25%–33% is typical. I’ve highlighted the areas where the increase is greater than that. You can see that in Level 8, even though the big blind doesn’t increase all that much, the CoR jumps up by 50% (from 2,400 to 3,600) because of the ante increase. If you assume two minutes per hand and 25 hands in each level of Day 1, that’s 400 chips per hand on average, or 10,000 chips to blinds and antes for Level 8. If you came in with a 70K stack (starting and addon)  at the beginning of Level 7 and didn’t play a hand, you would be down to about 54K.

After dinner are another couple of levels with slightly-larger-than-average increases, but the surprising one is the lullaby at the end of Day 1, where  Level 12 smooths out, increasing by only a sixth of the previous level’s CoR.

The tournament today doesn’t have re-entry, so be careful out there! After this, it’s back into semi-retirement for me!

See the inverse relationship between me winning at poker and me blogging? Cash big on Day 2, no blogs for a few days, then back to the daily blogging grind…

Even after a high like early Monday morning, a week of losing is a bit frustrating, not the least of which is because I was in the last of the High Roller satellites yesterday evening and managed to get A♦7♦ all in with 20bb from the button against kings in the big blind (not just ripping it in, it was my raise and 4-bet shove), and flop a flush draw, turn a straight draw, and whiff the river. So, no High Roller for me this morning; my bankroll management has gotten better since I have a job.

The series so far, coming into the final weekend: $4,900 in buyins (including 8 tournaments, 4 satellite tournaments, and one cash sesion). On the plus side: one $575 voucher for the Main Event and more than $10K in cash. Add in the room, meals, etc. and you can see why I’m not buying into the High Roller directly. Way easier to do these numbers when they’re not red.

So while all of the crushers are competing for the $150K guarantee today, I’ll be slaving away in the $40K guarantee salt mines. No giant payout at the end of that one, but I won’t be compromising my hard-earned profit.

Plus, I got word last night from Molly Mossey that I should be getting my piece of her EPT Barcelona cash soon (the check is in the mail!) so the summer has been pretty decent for a retired poker player/writer.

I was conflicted about whether I wanted to shell out the money for the Big Bounty tournament or wait for the Big O, so I put out a poll on Twitter. The results were tied, so I went with the first one, as it happened, I got to play both!

Yesterday was frustrating as Event #17 $40K GTD NLHE Big Bounty was a return to card deadedness. I opened A♥K♥ got a call from the blinds and folded to an aggressive open on a 9-high flop. Opened tens under the gun and got four callers with a king and a queen on the flop and folded to a bet. Those were the only two decent hands I saw in the first couple of hours. I played A♠2♠ and managed to take a small pot from AxKx when I paired my deuce. I tweeted out that my VPIP was less than 5% and Angela Jordison replied from the other side of the room:

People at my table already know

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) September 12, 2019

I lasted about four hours, then had tens again under the gun, got three calls against my raise, flopped 9x8x8x and jammed, getting called by Jx8x (offsuit). At least we were past the re-entry point.

Jumped into the Event #18 $25K GTD Big O got short real fast, got lucky and tripled up, then busted my first bullet in just about 30 minutes. Joe Brandenburg on my left in Seat 2 and a very aggressive young player in Seat 9 to my right.

Bullet number 2 lasted a couple of hours then lost a big hand just before the end of registration and decided not to add on.

Very short before add on break in the Big O, did not add on. Scooped a pot all in first hand back, then two hands with three of a kind IN MY HAND. Then out on button w AA244 when my raise is called 4 ways and QQ in SB makes a set on flop, calls my cbet shove.

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) September 12, 2019

The last 4-Seat GTD NLHE High Roller Satellite of the series started at 5pm and I got into that,

20K in my stack before addon at the end of registration in the HR satellite. @Mawkswell has made an appearance at my table. Meanwhile, there are payouts for one of the biggest of the biggest Big O tournaments in the world, and @MrCleverFox is near the money in the Big Bounty! pic.twitter.com/5T3M1k6WkB

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) September 13, 2019

I don’t know if it was that the mix of players at the table had changed as the last weekend of the series approached or if it was a week of (for most of us) losses, but the atmosphere felt decidedly testier during this final satellite. It may well have been the latter because we started off with John Gribben and some other players who were familiar from previous events. The new addition I knew of was Max Young, who’s one of the more laid-back individuals at the table, so it wasn’t him.

Already mentioned how I ended that attempt. This was the only High Roller satellite that made the guarantee, handing out six vouchers plus a sad $35 to seventh place (that’s just under one tenth of the buyin and addon).

The High Roller is about to start! Good luck everyone! I’l be watching enviously from across the room…

Since David Long, my usual travelling partner for the various incarnations of the Chinook Winds poker series wasn’t able to make it for this one at the last minute, I invited my father to come down for a couple of days.

My family is not a gambling family. For one, we didn’t have a lot of money; when Dad was a boy in Gresham, his parent’s house didn’t have running water, and that was after World War 2. Second we came from frugal stock that watched budgets; there was no fall-back for my folks. I never set foot in a casino or went to Vegas until I was in my 40s, and that was for a trade show, it wasn’t until several years later that I started playing poker. Dad hadn’t ever been in Chinook Winds until we went to the restaurant so we could get a good look at the ocean while we had lunch. At least, that was the plan. It was 11:30am by the time we got there, but they didn’t start lunch service until noon, so we got the most un-breakfasty thing on the menu: steak and eggs, which was fine.

Trip to Safeway for supplies, then back to the motel to dump them in the room before I left Dad to his own devices and headed out for the Event #14$15K GTD Omaha Hi-Lo. Not long before the second break, I was above average, but then it all went to hell in a handbasket when my top-two pair scoop got sucked out on by a rivered better two pair.

After that, it was out on the first hand in Level 10, just after coming back from break with just 4 big bets. Off to get some Boozy Shakes!

Congrats to Richard Imel from Portland, OR for winning the Super Boss Bounty today for $3,327 @chinookwinds pic.twitter.com/FVOCW8PaJE

— PACWESTPoker Classic (@PACWESTclassic) September 12, 2019

Tomorrow’s schedule includes the last satellite for Friday’s High Roller, a Main Event (Saturday) satellite, Big O and the Big Bounty. Seriously conflicted about whether I want to play the Bounty or Big O.

I’m afraid that I didn’t follow up on my post about Molly Anne Mossey‘s deep run on Day 3 at the EPT Barcelona Main Event, but she busted in 50th place (from 1,988 entries) just short of the end of day. The final table for that event was yesterday, Molly made a tidy sum for her first-ever EPT, and she was planning to play a side event before the end of the series.

Between Hossein Ensan bringing it for us old guys by winning the WSOP Main Event and Molly doing great for poker media in her debut at the EPT, I’m feeling pretty good about coming out of poker retirement for a week to play at the Chinook Winds Fall Coast Poker Classic next weekend. (People laugh when they see me at a game, but I’ve played about 20 live tournaments this year; during the first eight months of the years between 2012 and 2015, I played an average of 200).

Sadly, spending two prime summer weekends at the beach meant a tradeoff , so I missed what could be the last big event held at Portland Meadows Poker Club before the long-rumored conversion into freight-shipping warehouse center happens. There’s still time to catch the last events of the series today! (Brad Press, who took the picture below, took tenth place, by the way.)

Via friend of the blog Brad Press, clock from today's @PDXmeadowspoker $60K GTD NLHE (he's still in, GL!). Couldn't make it myself, but with more than $100K prize pool (payouts shown only for remaining players), it's one of the largest tournaments ever in Portland! pic.twitter.com/1IM1N2jUtF

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) September 1, 2019

On to the show!

In the good news/bad news department, results from the Wildhorse Summer Poker Round Up were posted within a couple of days, rather than weeks (or never). In the bad news, for whatever reason, no dates are on the series as posted at Hendon Mob (just “August 2019”), the title of the series duplicates the Spring series, and there’s only one event listed. That’s something, though, right?

Binh “Jimmy” Nguyen was the winner of that event, the Friday +$2K NLHE tournament. His win moves him up two spots to #78 on the Leaderboard.

Moving further afield, Seattle’s John Phan was at the WSOP Foxwoods #6 $500K GTD NLHE final table. The tournament had more than 1,750 entries and a prize pool of $900K. Phan’s 7th-place finish moves him up nearly 100 places on the Leaderboard, to #283.

James Romero had a good showing at EPT Barcelona, not the least of which was in Event #12 EPT Cup NLHE. Typically seen in the high rollers, Romero took a flier on the €550 buyin event that got 3,260 entries, and snagged 3rd place (placing just ahead of a Spanish player named Vicente Romero). Way more than I’ve ever won, but not enough to budge him from his #10 spot on the Leaderboard.

Mill Creek’s online whiz Jordan Westmorland was the only US player to cash in the Melbourne Poker Championship #11 NLHE Main Event, and he won it. He moves from #38 to #31 on the Leaderboard.

It’s not often that there’s significant movement in the top 10 of the Leaderboard. But just a month after Seth Davies took over the top spot on the Oregon Leaderboard at Hendon Mob, he gets 2nd place in EPT Barcelona #28 NLHE, a 52-entry, €50K buyin high roller that gives him a career-high cash and edges him from #4 to #3 (winkling Brandon Cantu out of that spot) on the overall PNW Leaderboard.

This is the last Leaderboard update until the end of the Chinook Winds series. Hopefully, those results will be promptly and completely reported, and I’ll get a chance to add my own name to the lists!