Monthly Archives: June 2021

PNW Poker Leaderboard — Father’s Day 2021 — WSOP is Go!

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2021 WSOP Schedule Released

The big news of the past two weeks is, of course, the announcement of the 2021 World Series of Poker Schedule last Monday. I had my room reservation at the Rio and flights scheduled by 11am that morning, after listening to Kevmath and the folks on the Rec Poker podcast as they went through it just after it hit the internet. I’m not going to bore you with my thoughts on the schedule—there are plenty of people far more knowledgable than myself ready to do that—but my own plans (depending on how things work out) include the 2-day Event #24 $600 PLO 8-Max Deepstack on October 12th, Event #27 $1,500 HORSE (3 days, October 13th), and Event #28 $1,000 PLO 8-Max (also 3 days, October 14th), along with however many satellites I can fit in before that Saturday night (hopefully not too many).

Still haven’t played a live game anywhere, though everyone is ramping up. The Game ran a $400 buy-in tournament this weekend scheduled for June 26. Portland Meadows has a $120 freezeout at noon every Saturday and a $100 freezeout on Sundays. And Final Table announced a competition Friday to give points to frequent players that comp them into a tournament where they play for a seat at the WSOP.

Podcast Frenzy

I mentioned the other day (ad nauseum) that I was on the Poker in the Ears podcast with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton. If you’re in a PokerStars real-money market, they give you a $109 ticket for the Sunday Millions tournament, but if you’re a victim of Black Friday or some other government regulatory shenanigans, they send you a consolation prize of some PokerStars merchandise. I unbagged my winnings this week.

I even made it into the last episode of the season, after I posted a tweet with some antique James Bond merch to Hartigan, an aficionado of all things Bond.

Since I started walking into work again a couple of weeks ago, my podcast listening time has gone back up, and at the end of last month I was listening to an interview of 2019 WSOP Player of the Year Rob Campbell on an episode of The Lock-In podcast, and he mentioned that he’d been doing a show called Podker. Co-hosted by $1/$3 cash game player and radio personality Angus O’Loughlin, it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve heard, as two guys with very Australian accents talk hand histories and interview people like Daniel Negreanu and Dan Zack and Daniel “Jungleman” Cates. Really, all the Dans. There are just a couple of seasons of 10 episodes so far, go back to the first one (November 2019) and trace the journey.

Kevmath’s Quarterly Year in Review

Thee months ago at the suggestion of Kevin Mathers, I ran the first year-over year ranking for the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard, and it’s time for the second edition already! Players are listed in order by their recorded tournament earnings between mid-June 2020 and mid-June 2021. The numeric values are their Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard ranks at the beginning and the end of the year-long period,

June 2020 RankJune 2021 rankstateplayer
78232Christopher Brewer
11Seth Davies
3126Adam Hendrix
2523Maxwell Young
430143Vanessa Kade
396173Adam Walton
1413Dylan Wilkerson
1309411Brian Meadows
107Dylan Linde
390233Wayne Harmon
766417Aaron Thivyanathan
7163Chad Wassmuth
2627Esther Taylor-Brady
3938Kao Saechao
1197575Brian Swanson
1507653Glenn Thompson
56761105Brett Polen
154133Dien Le
228198Daniel Park
473358Reginald Caymol

Vanessa Kade is the big newcomer to this list, with a cash (see below) in live tournaments after her massive online win in the Sunday Millions 15th Anniversary earlier this spring. A few folks fell off the list as cashes between March and June of last year dropped away.

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

Nobody was new to the Leaderboard this semi-month.

Let’s start out with Aaron Thivyanathan from Renton, who came 4th (of 202) in WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa #5 NLHE for his second-biggest score. Thivyanathan goes from #464 to #417 (that is since the last Leaderboard, the numbers in the table above are between last June and now).

Dien Le from Bellevue placed 7th of 398 in Seminole Hard Rock Deep Stack Poker Series #5 $200K GTD NLHE. Le climbs eight spots to #133.

Tony Hoang of Edmonton placed 8th in a Wynn Summer Classic $250K GTD NLHE held 7—10 June (why can’t the Wynn number their tournaments like normal people?) 1,350 entrants made for a prize pool of over $700K. Hoang moves from #431 to #386.

There were 2,790 entries in the MSPT/Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series #41 $1.5M GTD NLHE, pushing the prize pool to nearly $2.7M. 20th place was Filmon Ghebreegzabheir from Issaquah. Moving nearly 100 places up the Leaderboard, Ghebreegzabheir is now #514. Adam Walton of Seattle came in 11th in the same event, and rises to #173.

Out of Sherwood Park, Alberta, YePing Shan won the Venetian #50 $100K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It’s Shan’s largest recorded cash, and takes him up to #520 on the Leaderboard.

Christopher Brewer continues a journey through the high roller circuit, with a 7th place in the US PokerOpen/PokerGO #11 NLHE at the Aria/PokerGO studio. There were 69 entries. Brewer sticks at #32.

Adam Hendrix was the runner-up in USPO #5 NLHE with 85 runners. A good score, but not enough to move up from #26.

Down Under, Canadian Michael Maddocks had a good couple of weeks. First, there was a 3rd place cash in a field of nearly 500 in the WPTDeepStacks Gold Coast #1 NLHE. Always a good way to start the series. Then, a week later, runner up in a field of 1,113, in WPTDS Gold Coast #6 NLHE, for his biggest score to date. And a couple of weeks after that it’s another 3rd place (out of 108) in the Australian Poker League Poker Tour NLHE Jackstar Super High Roller. Maddocks jumps nearly 500 places on the Leaderboard, to #224.

We’ll wrap up this edition of the Leaderboard with the afore-mentioned Vanessa Kade, who rises almost 300 places to #143 with her jump into IRL high-roller poker. After her Sunday Millions, she popped into the US Poker Open. Kade came in 4th of 99 in USPO #9 NLHE, then 5th just a couple of days later in USPO #11 NLHE.

That’s it for now! Happy belated Juneteenth and have a great Father’s Day (you know who you are!)

PNW Poker Leaderboard — 5 June 2021

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Six Months to 60

When I started this blog, I’d just turned 49. I’d been playing live Hold’em for a little over two years. Tomorrow, I’ll be six months away from turning 60. So there’s that.

Five years ago, I was 3 days into my run as a live reporter at the WSOP.

Poker In the Ears

As previously mentioned, I was the Superfan contestant in the “Superfan vs. Stapes” segment on the official PokerStars podcast last week. This is the only exposure my card protectors have gotten in over a year!

Portland Poker

The Portland Meadows and Final Table poker rooms are (as of this writing) operating at 50% capacity, per county COVID restrictions, so things are moving in the right direction. There are a number of other venues in the Portland-area running shootouts and some tournaments. They include:

  • 45th Street Pub & Grill
  • The Game
  • Kit Kat Poker Club
  • Last Frontier
  • Stadiums Sports Bar

If you’ve got some other places that accept walk-ins drop me a line on Twitter @pokermutant.

Not-Portland NW Poker

Around the region, it seems to be mostly card rooms picking up the slack, rather than the casinos. High Mountain Poker is back in Eugene, and the Ontario Poker Room at the far east of Oregon has been active. Lots of reports from Palace in the Seattle area. Mostly from @dave_has_aces. Renton’s Fortune Poker is running high hand announcements on the NW Poker Facebook group.

https://twitter.com/dave_has_aces/status/1400884567599312897?s=20

The poker rooms at Spirit Mountain and Tulalip closed before the pandemic. Wildhorse—which was one of the first large venues in the state closed by a coronavirus outbreak—still hasn’t re-opened their poker room. Ditto for Chinook Winds, though they have announced tentative dates for the Fall Coast Poker Classic in September.

The biggest guarantee on a tournament I’ve seen so far is at the Clearwater Poker Room in East Wenatchee: $10K GTD, which has apparently been running since April.

Keep an eye on PokerAtlas, but call ahead before you head out anywhere is my advice.

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

Justin Mevs of Seattle is the first of two new names we welcome onto the Leaderboard this time. Mevs won the 186-entry Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series #23 $25K GTD NLHE MonsterStack, as the result of a 5-way deal on 26 May. It’s Mevs’s 4th and largest recorded cash. Mevs debuts at #3961.

13th place in the Wynn/PokerGO Summer Classic $1M GTD NLHE is Derek Hershman‘s first recorded cash. The player from Spokane beat out 1,717 other players to make it into the top 1% of the field. He is #2667 on the Leaderboard.

Max Young returns to the Leaderboard round-up with a 5th at the Prime Social Summer Series #10 $300K GTD NL H-Town (no idea what that means). 959 entries at the Houston (presumably H-Town) event. Found some info:

Open at Noon or 5pm for your share of triple-figures in the $300,000 Guaranteed $600 H-Town Special. Everything Houston-related is represented in this event, and you have you door fee wiped out if you show in ANY H-Town-related gear all weekend long.

Players open with a special H-Town 31,260 stack, playing 34-minute Day 1 levels. Registration and a single re-entry-per-player-per-flight period is open for 3 hours, 30 minutes for each flight in tomorrow’s 2 flights, Friday’s 2 flights (Noon and 5pm) and Saturday’s 2 flights (Noon and 5pm as well).

Check out the structure sheet to see all that Hammer has added that references H-Town, and don’t forget to yell “He Gone” when someone busts.

Max stays at #24.

Gold Beach’s Benjamin Garrick moves from #3087 to #1549 with a win in the Venetian #35 $50K GTD NLHE MonsterStack on 31 May. He beat 350 other entries in a 2-way chop for his 5th and biggest win.

Dylan Wilkerson came 7th in the Venetian #24 $250K GTD NLHE UltimateStack. The event had 867 total entries. Wilkerson had a win 10 days earlier in the Venetian #16 $150K GTD NLHE UltimateStack, with 739 entries. He holds at #13.

I’d be remiss if I did not mention Chris Brewer‘s win in the partypoker/WPT Online #5 $1M GTD NLHE High Roller, even though the results are not counted in the Hendon Mob leaderboard stats (though they are now recorded as part of the player’s tournament results). Not to worry, though, because he came in 3rd in the 65-entry Venetian/PokerGO #28 NLHE High Roller on 28 May, and turned around the next day to place 5th in the 43-entry Venetian/PokerGO #31 NLHE High Roller. Good thing, too, because apparently his bag full of chips was stolen from the food court there during the tournament. According to Daniel Negreanu on his DAT Poker Podcast, both Brewer’s bag and one belonging to Ali Imsirovic were taken. Just a reminder to keep your belongings close! Or don’t win anything, so you don’t have anything to lose!

Despite losing his bag, Brewer moves up two slots to #32 on the leaderboard. He passes Carter Gill (now #34) and DAT Poker co-host Terence Chan (#33). He’s sitting right behind Ian Johns (#31).