A Year of COVID Poker

Kevin Mathers (@kevmath on Twitter, follow him if you have somehow been living under a rock for the past year, hey, we sort of have been living under a rock!) got hold of me this morning and asked if there actually was such a thing as the PNW Leaderboard. As I explained to him, because I’m compiling my stats entirely from the Hendon Mob state and province leaderboards, I’m not going to just republish their data. The numbers you see here are entirely my own, combining their Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia (and Alberta, I just remembered!) into a single regional Leaderboard.

And publishing just the top names out of the more than 6,000 players I track wouldn’t be any fun; as I’ve mentioned ad nauseum there’s not a lot of movement up at the top. However, Mr. Math did say he thought a quarterly Top 20 for the results of the past year might be a kind of cool thins, and since I have nothing else to do other than compiling all of the stuff I need to feed to the IRS for my audit before Monday, I figured why not?

These are the rankings on the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard for The Plague Year. Last March to now, ranked by earnings (go to Hendon Mob to see what those are). Some people didn’t move at all, others just a little, and some zoomed up, despite the difficulties of (mostly) live poker in 2020 and early 2021.

*seriously, she hasn’t lived here for a long time, but she’s still on the Hendon Mob list for Oregon

PNW Poker Leaderboard — 20 March 2021

Lots of Pacific Northwest poker action going on in Las Vegas the past few weeks.

The new entry on the PNW Poker Leaderboard this time around is Vancouver, Washington’s Jaime Cervantes Alvarez, who placed 39th of 652 in the Card Player Poker Tour/Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza #26 $500K GTD NLHE, played in mid-February. The prize pool was close to triple the guarantee. It’s Alvarez’s first Hendon Mob cash and he hits the Leaderboard at #4354.

Aaron Thivyanathan of Renton placed just ahead of Alvarez at #38 in the same tournament at the Venetian. The next week, it was out to Florida for Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Poker Classic #7 NLHE, another $1.5M prize pool tournament, and 35th place out of 959 entries. Then in the second week of Marsh, back to Vegas for 17th of 253 in World Poker Tour/Venetian DeepStack Showdown #14 $20K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. He climbs from #638 to #552 on the Leaderboard. You may have noticed from his name showing up in the early February Leaderboard roundup that Thivyanathan has been busy.

Korey Payne has been keeping busy since his big win back in November.And he took 33rd in the same CPPT/Venetian #26 $500K GTD NLHE ahead of Thivyanathan and Alvarez, which moves him up 5 places to #162.

A little further up the winner’s list on that tournament you find one of my favorite people, Kao Saechao, who placed 29th. Saechao went on to cash in several more tournaments at the Venetian over the next three weeks, including WPT/Venetian #5 $15K GTD NLHE Survivor that ended up with a prize pool of $73K and 14 $5,200 payouts, and WPT/Venetian #8 $15K GTD NLHE Survivorthat did the same for 18 players. He also made it to 12th of 259 in the WPT/Venetian #7 $75K GTD NLHE Monster Stack. Need I say it? $250K prize pool. For this and more, Saechao moves not at all from his already prestigious #38 position.

Reginald Caymol jumped another 18 spots on the Leaderboard, to #399 taking 13th of 809 in the WPT/Venetian #13 $250K GTD NLHE Ultimate Stack. The Seattle player adds the cash to several smaller cashes at the Wynn earlier this year.

The WPT/Venetian #10 $1.5M GTD NLHE Main Event was a big draw for PNW players, several of whom went deep. The field drew 937 entries and had more than $4.3M in the prize pool. Out of Olympia, Raymond Dandrea cashed in 84th. He rises 40 spots on the Leaderboard to #526.

At 74th in the money, Kao Seng Saetern (Portland) bumped all the way up from #1509 to #1216.

Ten places higher, Port Orchard, Washington’s Kristopher Rundquist got his largest-ever cash for 64th, and goes more than 1700 spots up the Leaderboard to #2306.

pasco, Washington’s Joseph Beltran Arredondo came in 37th. He is now #827 on the Leaderboard.

George Wolff made the final three tables at 24th. He stays at #17. On the other hand, Adam Hendrix making 17th was just enough to push him from #31 on the Leaderboard to #30.

Finally, as usual it’s the high rollers that gobble up the big-money attention. Christopher Brewer continues to wreak havoc on the Aria tables, and cashed three tournaments in quick succession. It was a 2nd place for him in the Aria High Roller 04 NLHE. With just 14 entries, it looks like he did a 2-way deal with former PNW Leaderboard mainstay Ali Imsirovic that gave Brewer his career best cash. The next day, Brewer took 3rd in the 16-entry Aria High Roller 05 NLHE (no deal for him this time, though it looks like Sam Soveral and Jake Schindler chopped the top two spots). Then a week later it’s Aria High Roller 08 NLHE, with 6 payouts out of 39 entries and Brewer in 4th. For all that, he climbs 40 places to #75 on the Leaderboard.

Angela Jordison represent!