PNW Poker Leaderboard — 1 January 2022 — Pi Comes After Omicron Edition

Not a lot of live poker action from me since the World Series of Poker trip I made in October, though I’ve kept up a busy schedule of low-level online Omaha tournaments and Jackpot Sit-n-Go games on Ignition Casino. I played (and min-cashed) the November First Friday $20K GTD at Final Table—look for their new schedule starting 1 January, and barely lasted a level at Portland Meadows Oregon State Big O Championship in mid-December.

I started this blog when I was 49 years old. back at the start of the month, I turned 60. My wife and I went to New York City for my birthday, getting out just befoe the omicron coronavirus variant took over. Got back to PDX at 10:30pm and at 7am the next morning I was on a flight to Hawaii to spend a few days with my father , who was over there using up condo points before the end of the year. That’s Kiluaea behind us in the shot. If you go up there at night, the lava in the crater makes that white smoke look bright red.

PNW Poker Leaderboard

This edition of the Leaderboard includes some October and November straggling results from Canadian casinos. Like these…

Prabakaran Sivabalasundaram from Calgary won the Casino Yellowhead/Pure Poker Tour #1 PLO Bounty back at the end of September, beating out 176 other entries in the C$440 buy-in tournament. Sivabalasundaram climbs two hundred spots to #926.

Edmonton’s Andy Truong came in 2nd in the Yellowhead PPT #3 NLHE out of 326 entries. It’s good for a fifteen spot bump to #226.

Alberta-based Curtil Burlet comes into the Leaderboard hot, with a biggest-ever cash (it only their third) that lands them at #3092, for the runner-up position in Yellowhead/PPT #4 NLHE Bounty. (Remember that bounty cash is not reflected in Hendon Mob records and therefor does not affect the PNW Poker Leaderboard.) Calgary’s Weston Pring won the event, going from #347 to #309. Pring was featured in the last Leaderboard update; they came in 101st in the WSOP Main Event.

Casino Yellowhead/Pure Poker Tour Main Event

A C$1,100 buyin back in early October in Edmonton (470 entries and a prize pool of US$353K), the six top finishers all made it to the Leaderboard. Haven Werner of Calgary took 6th, moving him from #531 to #470. Fort St. John, British Columbia’s Bernice McLennan posted a biggest cash in 5th, jumping all the way to #2079 from #4428. Amir Khan, another Calgarian, took 4th, which combined with a 3rd-place finish in a Wynn Fall Classic $100K GTD NLHE in mid-November (404 entries, $237K prize pool) jumps Khan 1400 places to #917. Surrey, British Columbia’s Mike Kim goes up seventy-four places to #317 by taking 3rd. Out of Whitecourt, Alberta, it’s john Hanna debuting at #1160 on the Leaderboard with a 2nd-place finish. Finally, on the top, is Kyle Ho from Burnaby, with a best-ever cash and a move from #243 to #186.

Jordan Banfield from Calgary won the Deerfoot Inn Fall Super Stack #1 NLHE Deepstack in Calgary, an event that drew 385 entries back in early November. The prize pool was over US$88K. It’s Banfield’s only cash so far, and they enter the Leaderboard at #2622.

Deerfoot Inn Fall Super Stack #5 NLHE Mega Stack

John Nielsen from Sylvan Lake, Alberta placed 4th in this event (354 entries, US$135K pot) back in early November, going up more than 100 places on the Leaderboard, to #849. Coming in at 2nd was Ivan Milanovic, with a best-ever cash (only their fifth on record), good for a first-time ranking of #1990. The champion was Kelly Gall from Calgary, with their biggest cash so far and a jump of fifteen hundred spots on the Leaderboard, to #1284.

Redmond’s Dominick Nguyen found some time to play poker on the East Coast mid-November and won the 432-entry Boston Billiard Club & Casino Veterans Day NLHE tournament for a 2nd-ever cash and a new spot on the Leaderboard at #2586.

Deerfoot Inn Fall Super Stack #7 NLHE Super Stack Main Event

Daniel Lefebvre of Alberta was the 5th-place finisher in this event of nearly 400 entries and a US$300K prize pool. Lefebvre moves three hundred spots on the Leaderboard, to #981 (3 squared and nine squared!) Tyler Hurman from Calgary got their largest-ever cash in 4th, and climbs from #832 to #663. In 3rd was Kaan Becer out of Vancouver, whi gets an increase of twenty places to #193. And Takuma Bergeron from Coquitlam, Alberta got a best-ever cash in a deal for 2nd place, which raised them from #5503 to #1056.

back down to the States, James Battenberg from Issaquah nabbed 4th at a Wynn Fall Classic $100K GTD NLHE that had over three hundred entries and a $148K prize pool. Battenberg moves fifteen hundred places on the Leaderboard, to #2655.

Continuing at the Wynn, Bellevue’s Rajendra Ajmani came in 41st out of a field of 2,573 in the Wynn Fall Classic $1.5M GTD NLHE Mystery Bounty. Ajmani goes from #1104 to #916,

Christopher Brewer hit the jackpot on consecutive days at the Aria High Roller series. On November 16th, Brewer came in 3rd of 43 in Aria High Roller 39 NLHE, then 1st at Aria High Roller 40 NLHE the next day (albeit with only 16 entries). It’s enough to move from #16 to #14 on the Leaderboard.

Catching up to where the last Leaderboard left off on WSOP events, Dylan Wilkerson played World Series of Poker #79 NLHE Poker Hall of Fame Bounty. This new event awarded a bounty for each Poker Hall of Fame player eliminated, with the amount equal to the year they were inducted. There were bounties for eleven HoF entries, plus new WSOP spokesperson Vince Vaughn. All of the bounties were eliminated on Day One. Wilkerson placed 9th out of 468. By the way, Wilkerson’s WSOP profile now lists him as living in San Francisco, so no telling how much longer Hendon Mob will have him as a Washington State player; then he’ll be off the Leaderboard and everyone will move up!

There were 1,921 entries in the $800 WSOP #81 NLHE Deepstack, and Maxwell Sabel of Sun Valley, Idaho made it past 1,911 of them for a 10th-place finish and a first recorded Hendon Mob cash. Sabel makes a debut on the Leaderboard at #3127.

On the other end of the WSOP spectrum, #1-ranked Seth Davies placed 4th of 33 in the WSOP #82 NLHE Super High Roller, where the buy-in was $250K. Davies continues to increase the gap between #1 and #2.

Ian Modder of North Vancouver, British Columbia gets a seven spot increase on the Leaderboard to #141 by placing 36th out of 1,903 in WSOP #83 NLHE The Closer.

WSOP #88 NLHE 8-Max

Despite being called “The Closer”, Event #83 wasn’t even close to being the last bracelet tournament of the 2021 WSOP. This one was. It may be the latest (in the year) tournament to be played at a WSOP for quite some time, since they’re going back to the summer schedule. This game had a $5K buy-in, an aggressive two-day structure, and finished on November 23rd after 531 entries. 3 PNW players made a deep run in the event. with the first being from Edmonton, Ryan Snyder, who gained three hundred places on the Leaderboard, ending at #558. Lee Markholt didn’t gain any ground on the Leaderboard because he’s already way up at #8, but he did place at…8th. . And George Wolff came in 7th. Wolff went on to a mid-December 13th-place finish in the World Poker Tour Five Diamond NLHE Main Event. He stays at #17.

Dylan Linde moves up a spot—inside the Leaderboard top 10!—from #6 to #5 with an 8th-place finish in the WPT Five Diamond NLHE Main Event.

Jumping over to the Czech Republic, Mercer Island’s Carter Newhof rises more than four hundred places to #553 with a 3rd-place showing in World Series of Poker Europe #6 $200K GTD NLHE/PLO. Newhof was the only American in the top 10 of the 230 entries.

Artur Winstone halved his ranking to #2351 by going all the way to North Carolina from Edmonton (WSOP lists him from Honolulu) for the World Series of Poker Circuit Cherokee #3 $100K GTD NLHE.

Jordan Westmorland gains nine places on the Leaderboard with a 5th of 57 finish at WSOP Europe #10 NLHE Platinum High Roller. Westmorland (from Lynnwood, Washington) is now #44.

Tracie Osborne from Lacey, Washington got their biggest cash in Lincoln, California, at the WPTDeepstacks Thunder Valley $1M GTD NLHE Championship by placing 20th of 588. Osborne moves from #2284 to #1722. Steve Chanthabouasy‘s 9th-place finish in the same event kicks them up a notch, to #88.

Kamloops, British Columbia’s Jaroslaw Jaskiewicz came in 3rd at the Venetian DeepStack New Year’s Extravaganza Poker Series #14 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It missed the guarantee with 278 entries. but Jaskiewicz gains about twenty spots, moving to #229.

In Tampa the Seminole hard Rock Winter Poker Open $500K GTD NLHE Main Event more than doubled the guarantee, and Aaron Thivyanathan picked up 10th out of 772, to move from #190 to #175.

Twin Falls’ Sean Banahan racked up a best-ever cash at the Wynn Winter Classic $500K GTD NLHE that wrapped up 12 December with 743 entries. Looking at the payouts, there may have been some sort of deal done at four players remaining. Banahan’s Hendon Mob record only goes back to January 2020, so it’s definitely been impacted by the pandemic, and it includes a cash in a Seniors event, but this was a nice way to end the year! Banahan goes from #1666 to #577.

The final entry in the Leaderboard this time is how I’d like to close out every Leaderboard: Angela Jordison, taking 5th in the 1,042-entry Mid-States Poker Tour Minnesota Winter Poker Classic #9 $300K GTD NLHE Main Event. It’s yet another personal best cash for Jordison, coming just a couple of months after the “money phone” record at the Venetian. This pops Jordison up anothher thirty places on the Leaderboard, to #181.

Kevmath Quarterly Yearly Top 20

This is the fourth edition of the Kevmath Quarterly, which got started before his recent acquisition by GPI/The Hendon Mob. These players are the top 20 recorded tournament earners for mid-December 2020 through mid-December 2021 (ranked in order of 2021 earnings), and the change in their rank on the PNW Poker Leaderboard (which is based on lifetime recorded earnings). Players whose names are followed by an asterisk were on the list last quarter.

Both Seth Davies and Christopher Brewer are far ahead of the pack, with more than $3 million each in recorded tournament cashes over the past year. Adam Hendrix and Dylan Linde are both in the high six figures, the other sixteen names are all in the range between $160K and $400K.

December 2020 RankDecember 2021 rankstateplayer
11Seth Davies *
15614Christopher Brewer *
3122Adam Hendrix *
105Dylan Linde *
4524136Matthew Jewett *
5234Noah Bronstein
369102Adam Walton
4232163Robert Davis
433115Vanessa Kade
18486Harpreet Gill
1516Matt Affleck *
1717George Wolff
2220Darren Rabinowitz *
745175Aaron Thivyanathan *
6124248Jung Woo
3490244Bin Weng
1413Dylan Wilkerson
56James Romero*
2525Maxwell Young *
393190Wayne Harmon

You can see the giant jumps in Leaderboard status resulting from deep runs in the World Series of Poker main Event by Jung Woo and Matthew Jewett; the shot-in-the-dark cash by Bin Weng in the WSOP NLHE High Roller, and Robert Davis‘s runner-up finish in the WSOP NLHE Seniors tournament. Christopher Brewer, Dylan Linde, and Dylan Wilkerson moving up the Leaderboard ranks pushed a couple of other high-performing players down a notch, despite being in the Top 20.