We’re 29 days away from the start of the WSOP?
Congratulations are in order to Joe Brandenberg, whose win of the Big O tournament at the Ante Up Poker Tour World Championship Series at Thunder Valley Casino & Resort, combined with final table spots in the HORSE and FL Omaha Hi-Lo put him in the lead for the Player of the Year, which netted him a free entry to the series’s Main Event and a couple nights at the resort. Portland Big O forever!
The second edition of The Kevmath Report is out. You can read in there about Norman Chad’s #DonkeyCaravan, his plan to play the WSOP’s $25K buyin HORSE tournament; he’s selling pieces on stakekings.com for 1.5 markup, with all of the markup going to the Hope for Depression Research Foundation. I’ve got a piece; here’s hoping that Norm makes it deep and funds my WSOP!
PNW Poker Leaderboard
Lots of news from up north, as some of the first tournament series kicked off in Canada since the pandemic started!
Nohad Tellani of Edmonton (GPI: 10,235) picked up his biggest-ever cash with a win of the Summer Super Stack #7 PLO at Deerfoot Inn & Casino in Calgary. Tellani beat 165 other players in a prize pool of almost C$57K (US$45K). He climbs just over 300 places on the Leaderboard, to #1224.
Another Edmontonian, Malcolm Bolger (GPI: 10,858) took 4th in the Summer Super Stack #2 NLHE Megastack. That event drew 488 entries and made a prize pool of C$232K. Bolger was already #150 on the Leaderboard and rises to #144. Sherwood Park, Alberta’s Kris Steinbach took 2nd, pushing him fifty places up the Leaderboard to #283 (GPI: 3,763).
Talal Shoush of Edmonton (GPI: 6,858) came in 6th in the Summer Super Stack #8 NLHE Superstack. Shoush moves more than 200 places to #828, but he was not the only entry from that tournament (695 players, C$660K prize pool) to make this edition of the Leaderboard. Coming in at 5th was Haowei Pan (GPI: 6,914) from Alberta, picking up their biggest cash to date and debuting on the Leaderboard at #2304. In 3rd was Calgary’s James Yang (GPI: 9,122) picking up their first Hendon Mob result in six years, their largest-ever cash, and debuting on the Leaderboard at #723. Homan Mohammadi of North Vancouver (that would be north of the Vancouver to the north of Vancouver) was the runner-up. He’s GPI: 5,922 and moves from #87 to #79. Alberta-based Diem Tran (GPI: 4,117) was the winner; it’s Tran’s third Hendon Mob result (one of the others was in the PLO tournament above) and by far the largest. His debut on the Leaderboard is at #841.
Straddling both Megastack and Superstack, Calgary’s Zhun Rui Chen placed 3rd in the Megastack before claiming 7th in the Superstack a week later. Chen is GPI: 5,539 and makes a first appearance on the Leaderboard at #904.
Also out of Calgary, Tyler Thomas was the 3rd-place finisher in the 653-entry, C$186K prize pool Summer Super Stack #6 NLHE Deepstack. Thomas is GPI: 9,323 and jumps nearly three hundred spots on the Leaderboard to #984. Toma Raffaul from Alberta (GPI: 22,921) got his first Hendon Mob cash in 2nd place, entering the Leaderboard as #2824, and Lethbridge, Alberta’s Robert McMurren picked up the win and his second-ever cash to jump in at #1829 (GPI: 19,069).
For our last Canadian result of this edition, climbing 370 places on the Leaderboard to #1087 is Omar Stefanini of Coquitlam, British Columbia, who took first place in the Summer Super Stack #5 NLHE/PLO Mix (112 entries, C$53K prize pool. It’s Stefanini’s largest cash GPI: 2,370.
I said Canadian result not Canadian player, right? Because Edmonton player Sam Kim GPI: 14,874 placed 3rd in the World Poker Tour Choctaw #17 NLHE Monster Stack. There were over 700 entries and a prize pool of more than $200K. Kim moves up nearly 1,000 spots on the Leaderboard, to #1544.
And then there was Calgary’s Rey Lee GPI: 2,574 who squeaks onto the Leaderboard with his biggest cash at 20th in the Venetian/WPTDeepstacks $2M GTD NLHE Main Event. Lee climbs 900+ places to #1338.
What about our compatriots south of the border? Well, if it’s a Leaderboard these days, there’s got to be a Christopher Brewer result. Brewer took 2nd in the Merit Poker/PokerGO Super High Roller Bowl Europe #3 NLHE, with 26 entries and 19 re-entries at $25K a pop (assuming that’s on top of the 26; it paid 7 places). Brewer is GPI: 137 and moves up five slots on the Leaderboard, to #21. This finds Brewer moving up past the likes of Elliot Smith, Daniel Idema, Max Young, Doug Lee, and Adam Hendrix.
Brewer still has a way to go to catch #1 on the Leaderboard Seth Davies GPI:45, who continues to put space between himself and the rest of the pack this time. Davies was runner-up in SHRBE #5 NLHE Short Deck and won SHRBE #8 NLHE.