Look Back In Poker

Everybody’s always asking
Why do what I do
I don’t gamble ’cuz I want to win, boys
I gamble ’cuz I need to lose

This was the year I didn’t go to Vegas.

I announced last fall that I was retiring from poker at the end of 2018, then got a lot of funny looks from people when I started showing up at tournaments three weejs after I retired. It wasn’t ever supposed to be an absolute thing, but I did scale back my poker playing to spend more time with the family, specifically, my wife, who retired on January 1st. And I did.

I played 95 live tournaments in 2018, and only 53 in 2019. There was a starker comparison in the first half of each year, because in 2019 I played only 14 live tournaments between January and June, where I’d played 37 in 2018. Online, I was still fairly active, with 388 tournaments in 2018 only going down to 306 in 2019, but half of the 2019 tournaments were Jackpot Sit-and-Gos, hyper-turbo, 3-player tournaments that tend to last less than 10 minutes, so they weren’t exactly eating up the time an MTT would. 3% ROI playing mostly $7 entries but also some $2, $15, and $20 games. Never saw a jackpot higher than 5x the buy-in.

After playing 85 of the nightly Thousandaire Maker tournaments on Ignition Poker last year, I entered 16 Thousandaire Makers in 2019 (cashed 2, for a -14% ROI).

I had my second-largest career cash ($10K) in this first year of my retirement, which—at the end of November—had me as #28 on the Poker Media Power Rankings, right between two of the actual poker journalists I worked with at the World Series two years ago.

In 2018, I made two brief trips too Las Vegas—in the summer and just before New Year’s, but I didn’t leave the Northwest at all (for poker) in 2019. My first experience as a player at the World Series of Poker was in 2012, I was down for short periods at least once during the summer each year until 2018 (and for a pretty long period in 2016) even when I wasn’t playing a WSOP event); now that’s retired.

Just one third the number of tournaments at Final Table this year (13 vs. 41 in 2018), even though it was the final year of my free door fees there (part of the payment for doing their web site a couple of years back, and a real steal in no-rake Portland). I played a couple more tournaments this year at Portland Meadows (14 in 2019 vs. 11 in 2018) because of the Grand Finale series.

You might think that the second-best career cash would be my best ROI in a tournament this year, but at 1800%, that was just over half the ROI from an Ignition $4K GTD NLHE Turbo where I took 4th of 471, for ROI of 3100%. I had five other tournaments where I cashed for more than a 1000% ROI.

Wins this year included a 66-player Ignition $500 GTD PLO8 Turbo, first in a chop in a Final Table $10K GTD NLHE (83 entries), the Chinook Winds $50K GTD NLHE (technically second, but I got a skosh more money, 210 entries), and a bunch of Jackpot Sit-and-Gos.

As usual, I didn’t play much in the way of cash games, but a couple of decent sessions at Portland Meadows were enough to make that part profitable.

Goals in the new year: satellite into a $5K or $10K buyin. I’ve got my eye on the Bay 101 Shooting Star (which has satellites running this month and February) or the LAPC/WPT Main Event at the end of February, with two 50-Seat guaranteed mega satellites just before Day 1. Then, of course, there’s the WSOP Main Event.

Love to goto the Irish Poker Open in March, but there are some obstacles in the way that make it easier to try for Bay 101 or LAPC instead. PokerStars hasn’t announced that there’ll even be and EPT Prague next year, so that ship may have sailed.

Hapy New Year!

PNW Poker Leaderboard — 13 December 2019

It’s Friday the 13th and I’m coming off a 2nd-place finish last night in a tournament, so I’m feeling like writing about some poker, even though the little bit I made at the Portland Meadows Grand Finale #10 $2K GTD NLHE Seniors isn’t close to getting me a mention here except for the fact that I write the column.

Let’s get to some real prize-winners!

The new name on the Leaderboard is Scotty McDaniel from Brent(?), OR, whose 4th-ever cash is a 4th-place finish at WSOPC Planet Hollywood #9 $100K GTD NLHE Monster Stack. He debuts on the list at #1755.

Seth Davies makes a big jump to the #2 spot on the leaderboard, edging out Kevin McPhee with 5th place in the PokerMasters #10 NLHE Main Event, a $50K buyin with 34 entries, followed by another 5th in the partypoker MILLIONS World Bahamas NLHE  Super High Roller Bowl. And by “super”, they mean, of course, a $250,000 buyin. 37 entries.

The high roller tournaments continue to be good for George Wolff, as well, with a 2nd-place finish in PokerMasters #8 NLHE ($25K buyin). He moves six spots to #18.

It’s good to be Alex Ding (Dupont, WA) this fall. He won the Muckleshoot Main Event in October for his first recorded tournament cash. In the last installment of the Leaderboard, we reported he was runner-up in the WPT Montreal High Roller (recorded cash #2). And this time he took 2nd in the WPT Five Diamond NLHE 6-Max. He’s #203 on the Leaderboard.

It’s another runner-up for David Oppenheim (Mercer Island) who got his best-ever cash in the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza IV $200K GTD NLHE EpicStack. Oppenheim climbs 144 spots to #323.

At #11, Dylan Wilkerson holds steady with his 4th-place finish in WSOPC LA #5 $250K GTD NLHE Monster Stack.There were 815 entries.

Michael Long of Henderson, WA won the 185-entry Wynn Winter Classic $25K NLHE Seniors, his second-best score, popping him up more than 250 places to #545. In the Wynn Winter $250K GTD Classic NLHEGerald Peltolta from Renton came in 5th for his biggest cash. He is now #383. Puyallup’s David Price took 2nd in a 3-way deal at the Wynn Winter Classic $40K GTD NLHE, doubling his lifetime earnings and moving to #1281.

In more senior poker news, Woodland’s Kelly Frisbie  grabbed 3rd in the WPT Five Diamond NLHE Seniors (132 entries, $1,100 buyin). That’s Kelly’s largest cash and enough to move from #822 to #574.

Matthew Simmons from Kirkland (winner of a Planet Holywood GOLIATH Stack event in 2018) came in 3rd of 426 entries in the WSOPC Planet Hollywood $75K GTD NLHE Double Stack. His 2nd-best cash moves him to #237.

Landon Brown from Kent decided to spend some of the winter in Florida winning money at the SHRPO #2 $250K GTD NLHE, where he came in 7th after a smaller cash at the WPT event there a couple weeks earlier. Landon in #336. In one of the more bizarre coincidences I’ve run across doing this, a Landon Moore (Billings?, OR) is reported as taking 2nd place in SHRPO #18 $50K GTD NLHE Deep Stack Black Chip Bounty.That’s good to move from #1861 to #1228.

Finally, congrats to Bryce Cox of Maple Valley, WA, whose biggest-ever cash in WSOPC Planet Hollywood #3 NLHE just missed the usual cutoff for the Leaderboard roundup by $33, but I feel like someone who just won a Circuit Ring ought to get a little bump!

Anyway, tonight is the Bounty tournament at Portland Meadows, then it’s the $80K GTD tomorrow and the final game on Sunday: Big O! See you on the felt!