PNW Poker Leaderboard — 2019 Main Event Eve

It’s the night before the 50th Annual WSOP Main Event and all through the house not a creature is stirring but I’m sobbing uncontrollably because I’ve had a summer cold/cough for the past week and this morning I cancelled my reservation to fly to Vegas tomorrow night. Plan was to get into town and play single-table and mega satellites to get into the Main Event until I dropped, but after a week of this, my estimate of that window was considerably reduced, not to mention the grind waiting for me if I actually managed to get in. So I sucked it up and told myself that there’s always more poker where that came from. Good luck to the dreamers!

Shout out to Jacki Burkhart for spearheading an initiative to sponsor veterans to the Salute to Warriors tournament that started today.

The results from the Wildhorse Spring Poker Round Up finally made it to The Hendon Mob, so just two-and-a-half months after the series finished up, they’re getting incorporated into the Leaderboard along with the Vegas results. Let’s jump in!

I’m going to first mention a couple of names that don’t normally meet the strict reporting criteria, but due to a fudge factor called me, I’m pushing them over the line.

First off is a man for whom I have great gratitude, Jeremy Harkin. I’ve mentioned before how supportive he was offering me an inexpensive place to stay in Las Vegas when I was working the WSOP, but he’s also in charge of the NW Poker group on Facebook, which is a great source of info for Portland-area players and others. His summer this year hasn’t matched last year’s gold bracelet, but a couple of cashes (42nd in WSOP #63 Omaha Mix and 36th in WSOP #60 PLO8) combined to get him on the radar, moving him from #86 to #85 on the Leaderboard.

And there’s Tam Nguyen, who one of the first times I met him tried to convince a table of players at Final Table that I was Howard Lederer’s brother, which both dumbfounded and amused me. I still don’t have any idea what prompted that, but it continues to make me laugh when I think about it. He cashed 68th in the 10,185 entry WSOP #64 NLHE Crazy Eights. Tam is #27.

Back in April, Andrew Bohl from Nampa, Idaho took 2nd place in Wildhorse #10 NLHE, which moved him up more than 500 places to #1009. He was bested by Kennewick’s Mohammed Mirza Quorban. He climbs to #417.

Matt Ostby, also from Kennewick, took 2nd in an earlier $220 buyin, Wildhorse #3 NLHE. It’s his largest cash ever recorded and he debuts on the Leaderboard at #1729.

Michael Oldfather (White Salmon) took 3rd in Wildhorse #11 NLHE, the $330 buyin on the day before the Main Event. It was his largest cash; he moves up to #830 from #1264. Cody Rogan of Gresham goes up more than 500 places to #721 with his 2nd place in the event, and Eric Lowe from Boise was another player getting his biggest cash in this event at 1st. Lowe breaks into the Top 500 at #498.

The Wildhorse #2 NLHE High Roller was down to 36 entries this spring. Corvallis’s Gregory Lindberg was the winner, and he moves up 50 places to #258.

Anthony Simpson from Pasco took 2nd in the $115 buyin Wildhorse #1 NLHE, then he turned around and took 2nd in Wildhorse #9 NLHE Seniors. He moves 48 places to #237.

Three of the top 5 players at the Wildhorse #12 NLHE Main Event are new to the Leaderboard, which means they previously had less then $3K in recorded cashes. Gaston Motola-Acuna from Lewiston has just one recorded cash, for 5th place, and he starts out in #1961. John Schoonover (Longview) nabbed 3rd, for a debut at #1171 (his first recorded cash was the previous event). Calvin Peterson (Coeur d’Alene) has a record of small cashes going back to 2012, but his win here dwarfs the rest and he comes in at #658. Spokane Valley’s Justin Monk took 4th, moving 4 places to define the century mark at #100. And Binh “Jimmy’ Nguyen took 2nd in the Main. He moves three spots to #80.

back to the real worls and the summer in Vegas, Kirkland’s James Pennella just about made the very international final table of the 1932-entry Aria/Zynga NLHE WPT500, finishing 9th. Penella rises to #138.

Bruce Zhen (Salem) got 2nd in the 30 June edition of the Rio $250 Daily Deepstack (602 entries), going up 350 places to #719.

Scott Clements is still crushing things, with two deep runs in smaller buyin events. He came in 5th in WSOP #54 Razz, then 14th in WSOP #60 PLO8. He’s still #1 on the Leaderboard.

Team Smith, the runner-up in WSOP #57 NLHE Tag Team, included Bellingham player Matthew Moreno. Moreno’s third of the money was his largest cash by far (and only the third recorded), and it propels him from #2327 to #657.

Over on the Strip, Dylan Linde got 4th in the Venetian/MSPT Deepstack Championship $2M NLHE. It’d be a huge win if Linde didn’t already have $4M in earnings, but it still bumps him from #9 to #8.

Finally, the Portland area continues to be the land of Omaha players, with Vancouver’s Rodney Burt nearly managing a takedown versus Anthony Zinno in WSOP #60 PLO8. Burt goes from #573 to #123 on the Leaderboard.

Till the next one!