The dam broke this week and results from both the Summer and Fall Wildhorse Poker Round Ups have made it to Hendon Mob, where they’ve been absorbed into the state (and now province) leaderboards, and made their way to this, the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard. On top of that, the holiday lull is over and NW players have fanned out actoss the world to win more money.

On top of the movers this week is Bellevue’s Marko Pantelic, taking third out of 487 entries in the WSOPC Thunder Valley #12 $500K GTD NLHE Main Event. His fifth recorded cash is his best by far (three of his other cashes were also from Northern California events). marko moves up nearly 2,100 places, to #564.

George Wolff continues to bang away at the high roller circuit, with a 3rd place in the Australian Poker Open #4 $25K PLO. It’s his third cash in Australia since the start of the year, and he moves up another place on the Leaderboard, to #16.

Andrew Brunette from Woodland, WA picked up his first and only (so far) recorded cash by winning the Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #12 +$10K NLHE Main Event. There were 434 entries, and Brunette makes it onto the Leaderboard for the first time at #1288. Coming in right behind Brunette was Auburn, WA’s Jeffrey Lindsey, who rose from #3316 ro #1259 with his fifth (and largest) cash. David Templeton from Anchorage took third—far from his first or fifth cash, but still his best. He goes from #395 to #333. Boise’s Gregg Wilkinson was 4th for his biggest cash (jumping 4,010 places to #2303). And Monty Ford of Wellpinit, WA is the last of the players from that event to make this edition of the Leaderboard, with his 5th place finish taking him to #1011.

Boise’s Jessica King took down the Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #3 +$5K NLHE, her largest score to date, beating a field of 470 and moving her up nearly 5,000 places to #1642. Gregory Lindberg from Corvallis came in 2nd for his best cash, climbing about a hundred places to #462. Chad Wassmuth from Lewiston moved up two spots to #71 with a 3rd place in this event and a win in Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #1 +$3K NLHE. The runner-up in the latter event was a different Chad from Idaho, Chad Heft (Boise), who picked up his first cash and a position at #3486. back in Event #2, Kennewick, WA’s Jimmy Stringer came in 4th, but he gets an extra boost because he won Wildhorse Summer Poker Round Up #2 +3K NLHE back in August. Stringer is now #794.

Back on the other side of the globe, Portland’s Landen Lucas came in 5th out of 299 in Aussie Millions #19 NLHE, a A$2,500 buy-in. He climbs to #568.

Tzu Huang of Surrey, BC was at the WPT/Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open $2M GTD NLHE Championship and came in 16th out of 843 entries. Huang rises fifty places to #309. Matt Affleck came in 23rd, and remains at #15.

Beaverton’s Binh Nguyen was one of the few players to have any results reported from the lone Summer series event in Pendleton that had been submitted, but he also won the Wildhorse Summer Poker Round Up #4 NLHE and climbs to #128. Justin Monk (Spokane Valley) was his runner-up, and he goes to #186. Ghulam Mirza of Kennewick was third. Coincidentally, Ghulam Mirza Mohammed of Kennewick was 2nd in the Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #10 +3K NLHE. Do you think they could be related? The former only has four cashes (#2929) and the latter has five (#2049). Jeff Ball (from Pendleton!) took 4th in Summer Event #4) and is now #1811.

William Smith of Tualatin, OR won Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #11 +$3K NLHE. He bumps up to #797. Boise’s Brent Becker took 2nd (#715) and Jared Dairy of Bend got 3rd (#1829).

Shoreline, WA’s Cynthia Orr makes her debut on the Leaderboard at #2546 by winning Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #9 +3K NLHE Seniors. Her runner-up was another newcomer, Kennewick’s James Peck, whose first cash puts him at #3440.

Dylan Wilkerson was another PNW player Down Under, getting 3rd in the Aussie Millions #18 PLO8. There were 133 entries, and Wilkerson remains at #14.

Zack Powers of Arlington, WA took 2nd iin the 341-entry Wildhorse Summer Poker Round Up #3 NLHE. He enters at #3089.

Spokane’s Paul Thone (#3792) got his second cash in Wildhorse Fall Poker Round Up #5 +$3K O8. That’s the last of the entries for Pendleton; may they never be this late again!

Lastly but not leastly, Seattle’s Dean Bui won a Wynn Signature Series $400 NLHE mid-month to go from #188 too #177, then James Canitz of Eagle River, AK got second in the same event the next day, popping up to #895.

That’s it for the end of the month. I know there are a couple of results that hadn’t posted by the time the charts ran on Wednesday (looking at you Ryan Stoker!) but you’ll just need to wait for the next edition.

Well, this decade’s been a bust for me so far. With Portland Meadows closed down until they get their new location (8102 NE Killingsworth) set up, Final Table has been running $20K guarantees every Friday night. The first of those this year (on the regularly-scheduled First Friday) got 190 entries. That had dropped down to 137, but that was still enough for nearly $7K scheduled for the top prize.

I also dropped in to see the new Trio room at 9th & E Burnside (photo at the top from Kat Mullins on the NW Poker Facebook page). They had a couple of Big O tables running the first day and when I sat down, Kerry Moynahan (who was dealing), mentioned that he didn’t usually see me at the shootout tables, as opposed to the multi-table tournaments. Five minutes later, after winning my first hand and then losing my entire buy-in on the second—after flopping a straight and calling off against a better straight on the turn—he knew why.

That’s my 2020 so far…how’s everyone else’s?

If you’re a real stats-watcher, you may notice some variation in this edition of the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard, because it now includes players from Alaska, Alberta, and British Columbia. It’s a move I’ve been wanting to make for a while but was too lazy to implement until recently. I meant to get it going before the start of the year, but here it is in the second edition!

Why not start with George Wolff, who’s been walloping the high roller scene since last fall’s British Poker Open. He’s cashed in 10 events with buy-ins of $10K or more with nearly $1.9M in earnings, with the latest coming in the Aussie Millions A$25,000 NLHE Challenge, where he made a deal for 2nd place. George moves up a rarified 5 spots on the Leaderboard, from #22 to #17.

James Romero came in 3rd after starting the final day as chip leader at the partypoker MILLIONS UK $5M GTD NLHE Main Event, a $10K buy-in with 530 entries. Romero also rises five spots, to #5 on the Leaderboard, with his largest score since winning the 2016 WPT Five Diamond (which was only his third recorded live cash, if you really want to beat yourself up over your poker career like I do).

The first player from Canada to make an appearance on the Leaderboard is John Skrovan of Burnaby, BC, who took 2nd place in the WSOPC Choctaw NLHE Main Event. As usual, the venue drew a large field of 1,065 entries. It’s Skrovan’s largest cash ever (even though he made the final table of a $600 bracelet event with 6,000+ entries at last year’s WSOP), He moves up 400 spots to #211 on the Leaderboard.

Tom Mahon from Dairy, OR got a little of the Lucky Changes Gold Rush #3 NLHE, which brought in 632 entries for a prize pool of $632K. Mahon cashed in 6th place, doubled his lifetime reported earnings, and moves nearly 850 spots on the Leadderboard, to #1115.

Portland’s Ming Zhu was the runner-up at the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganze NYE #36 NLHE MonsterStack, as part of a six-way deal. He’s currently #250.

The lone newcomer to the Leaderboard (breaking the $3K earnings threshold, as opposed to a couple thousand folks added from BC, AB, and AK) is Vancouver (WA)’s Isaiah Avery, whose second recorded cash was 3rd place in the $200 buy-in, 839-entry MOOSE Poker Tournament Series #10 $30K GTD NLHE. It got—and you can do the calculations yourself) more than five times the guarantee. and had an incredible flat payout structure (none of this 9th makes 10% of 1st; it was one-third). The 5-day series at the las Vegas Golden Nugget had 17 events, which must have kept the place pretty jammed. Avery starts at #3518.

The last name on the list this edition is Ronald Anderson from Yakima. He’s #710 after taking 3rd in a three-way deal at the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganze NYE #33 NLHE MonsterStack.

Keep on winning!

The new year starts out a lot like the old year, with a lot of familiar names making a lot of money. Not me, I literally just busted out of my first tournament of the year (Final Table First Friday $20K GTD) just short of the money, after having a decent-sized stack at 4 tables (with 3 tables cashing).

Fuck fuck fuck three hands go bad and I’m out near bubble.

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) January 4, 2020

The short stack mentioned above lost a big hand to me when my dominated (but suited) king hit the flush against his ace-king. He was down to a quarter of a big blind but chipped up and was still in when I went from 30bb (about twice the average stack) to zero.

Let’s start off the new year with news of the #2 player on the leaderboard, Seth Davies, who won the WPT Five Diamond NLHE High Roller (53 entries at $25K a pop), then turned right around and cashed in third place in the WPT Five Diamond NLHE Main Event (606 entries, $10.4K buyin). That comes on the heels of his biggest-ever cash last month. Remaining in the #3 spot, Kevin MacPhee took 18th.

George Wolff continues his climb, moving up two spots to #16 with a string of cashes last month. Notable among them was a runner-up finish at EPT Prague #5 PLO High Roller (PRAGUE!), which got a total of 40 entries, which was his largest single payout so far. A week later is a sixth-place in EPT Prague #33 NLHE High Roller (66 entries, $25K entry). A huge amount of money but sort of a smaller multiple cash that wouldn’t normally make the list, except that the next day he takes 9th in the 255-entry EPT Prague #39 NLHE High Roller ($10K buy-in), then hops over to the Bellagio for 3rd place in WPT Five Diamond #27 NLHE High Roller ($25K, 37 entries), and wraps up just before Christmas at the Venetian in the CPPT/DSE NYE #19 NLHE Main Event with 160 entries and a $3.5K buy-in, where he gets third again. A fairly productive three weeks.

Max Young continues to crush what I guess are called the large-field “mid-majors” these days, with 2nd in the Wynn Winter Classic $500K GTD NLHE; more than 1,200 entries doubled the guarantee. Max moves up a spot to #20.

Holding at #8, Dylan Linde came in 7th at the WPT Five Diamond #15 NLHE, a $5.2K buy-in tournament that saw 127 entries. Buy his book!

The only new name on the Leaderboard in this first edition of 2020 is Michael Kiselman of Edmonds. His singular recorded cash is for first place in what looks like a 2-way deal in the Wynn Winter Classic $40K NLHE over 270 other players (the prize pool was nearly $100K). His first spot on the Leaderboard is #1383.

Up the block at Harrah’s, at the WSOPC Las Vegas #11 $500K GTD NLHE Main Event, it was Matt Affleck taking 12th place. He is still #12.

Alex Dickson of Keizer knocked off 3rd at at the WSOPC Las Vegas #3 $100K NLHE, which apparently missed the guarantee with 188 entries at $600 a pop. He’s up nearly 50 places to #351.

I could swae I saw our old friend Wayne Keller at the Portland Meadows Grand Finale the other day, but he was also at the WSOPC Las Vegas #6 NLHE Seniors tournament, where he won a Circuit Ring! Wayne climbs 14 spots to #193.

And that’s a great way to end the first edition of the Leaderboard for the year. I’d have more, but Wildhorse still hasn’t reported results from November’s Round Up to either Hendon Mob or Cardplayer. If you like to keep track of this stuff yourself, harangue your tournament director to send in the results.

Otherwise it’s like you’ve never existed.