PNW Poker Leaderboard — 04 January 2020

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).

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.