PNW Poker Leaderboard — 18 December 2021: WSOP Main Event (and more)

NOTE: I started this a month ago! And I’m just now finishing it up. Sorry for the delay, in the meantime I’ve qualified for the WSOP Super Seniors event, been to New York City for the anniversary of my marriage to Mrs. Poker Mutant, and Hawai’i to spend a couple days with my dad—things are just that busy! Happy Holidays!

The WSOP Main Event is over and done with, with al of the PNW participants out before the final tables. I have to admit that after including Mitchell Halverson and Jesse Lonis in the 2021 WSOP Main Event Tracker because WSOP has them as Oregon players, that I was disappointed to see they were listed on the Nevada and New York leaderboards at Hendon Mob, so they aren’t included in the combined PNW leaderboard.

Even without them, there’s a lot of territory to cover.

Let’s start with Kenn Pluard from Happy Valley, Oregon, who was 25th in the field of 1,441 at the Wynn Fall Classic $1.5M GTD NLHE. That, and a career-high cash at the Main Event (338th) bounce Pluard from #978 to #584.

Maxwell Young reappears on the Leaderboard with a 12th-place finish at the Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series II #35 $400K GTD NLHE UltimateStack. The tournament got 1,408 entries and pushed the prize pool to $1.35M. Calgary’s Phil Wright nabbed 4th in the same event, for a career-high score and a jump on the Leaderboard from #2508 to #505.

World Series of Poker #52 NLHE Seniors

Bellevue’s Brian Orrico took 48th in the 5,404-entry tournament, going from #2725 to #1814 on the Leaderboard. The Seniors is typically one of the largest fields; previous years with only one entry day set records for the largest single-entry-day live poker tournaments. This year’s run with two entry days generated $4.8M for the prize pool. Coming in at 34th was Victoria player Rhonda Shepek, with a career best and a jump of 2500 places to #2133. Robert Sun from Anchorage came in 22nd and climbs to #1932 from #4026. Coming in at 17th was John McNaughton of Innisfall, Alberta with a biggest-ever cash and debut on the leaderboard at #1349. Every two years, Robert Davis comes out of Eagle River, Alaska to cash in the Seniors tournament—he has exactly 3 Hendon Mob entries: 2017, 2019, and this year—all in the same event. This year he hit it big, with 2nd place, far eclipsing his previous totals, and leaping from #4320 to #162 on the Leaderboard. Davis is now #7 on the Alaska state leaderboard.

Robert Davis

Red Deer, Albeta’s Jason Volk was runner-up in the Venetian #36 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It’s Volk’s largest cash (this is the season!) and he moves almost 1800 spots to #870.

Dwayne Hillock from Prince George, British Columbia came in 14th in WSOP #55 NLHE Colossus out of 9,399 entries. The prize pool was just over $3.1M. Hillock rises over 800 places to #1533.

Portland’s Rambo Halpern took 8th of 969 at the Venetian #37 $300K GTD NLHE Seniors, taking Halpern up 38 places to #385.

The Wynn $3M GTD NLHE Championship made a prize pool of $5.7M with 1,775 entries and Brett Kennedy of Sattle took 50th, climbing forty spots on the Leaderboard to #319.

It was a biggest-ever cash for John Nielsen (Sylvan Lake, Alberta) with a win in the Autumn at Aria $40K GTD NLHE. Nielsen goes up more than 600 spots to #958.

Monroe, Washington’s Roger Hammond is up 800 places to #1937 with a 7th-place finish in the Venetian #40 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. 358 entries and a $347K prize pool.

World Series of Poker #58 NLHE Super Seniors

The Super Seniors event (60+) got nearly 1,900 entries this year, makng a prize pool of just under $1.7M. Sad to say, I’m qualifying for this by next summer. Three PNW players made the final two tables. Alberta’s Gary Bain got a largest-ever cash placing in 16th and jumping eighty spots to #846. From masco, Washington, Anthony Simpson took 13th for a climb from #536 to #476. And you may remember Bill Stabler of Salem having been the runner-up in the Seniors event the last time everyone got together at the Rio in 2019; he came in 4th in this tournament.

Bill Stabler

Chris Brewer got shafted by The Bet that Limon won back in 2015 because people picked Koray Aldemir for their slate of players in the Main Event. Hopefully, his 5th-place finish in the WSOP #60 Poker Players Championship 6-Max is some consolation. There were 63 entries at $50K each. Brewer maintains at #16 on the Leaderboard.

World Series of Poker #62 PLO8 8-Max

Portland’s James Haddad made it to 12th in the field of 725, which is good for a move from #126 to #125. Dylan Wilkerson came in 8th, and stays at #13. Sterling Lopez out of Anchorage took 4th, for their biggest recorded cash and a move from #2961 to #708.

Venetian #43 $1M GTD NLHE Mini DeepStacks Championship

Nearly two thousand entries in this event pushed the prize pool to just under $1.9M. Sean Banahan from Twin Falls, Idaho made it to 24th for a career-high cash, and moves about six hundred spots to #1666. Coming in 9th was Jimmy Lee from Edmonton, which moves him two notches up to #77.

It was a largest-ever cash for Puyallup’s Jason Diaz, placing 4th out of 355 in the Aria $40K GTD NLHE. Just about triple the guarantee with 355 entries. Diaz jumps up about four thousand places on the Leaderboard to #2699.

Anchorage’s Young Ji won the Aria $30K GTD PLO8 in either a 3 or 4-way deal (186 entries, $74K prize pool). Ji is a 2015 WSOP PLO8 bracelet winner. He climbs 5 spots on the Leaderboard to #130.

Noah Bronstein was heads-up for the WSOP #64 NLHE/PLO 8-Max bracelet. There was a field of 579 entries at $5K each. Bronstein moves up nearly twenty places to #34.

Donald Kehler of Prince George, British Columbia bounced more than a thousand places to #1849 with a win (and largest-ever cash) in the $400 Rio Daily Deep Stack Series NLHE. The tournament on 3 November got 184 entries and whipped up a prize pool of over $60K.

World Series of Poker #65 NLHE Mini Main Event

From Redmond, Washington, Karimon Umarov placed 27th in the 3,821-player Mini Main freeze out, which had a prize pool of just over $3.4M. Umarov debuts on the Leaderboard with their biggest-ever result at #3601. Prasad Dobbins from Anchorage got their biggest cash and a boost from #4173 to #2256 with 20th place. And Seattle’s Matt Jewett got 6th in this event just before he jumped into the actual Main (more to come).

World Series of Poker #67 NLHE Main Event

Reminder: Just doing the big winners here. This thing’s long enough as it is, I apologize if you cashed and didn’t get on the Leaderboard round-up, if you didn’t get something like a 300% ROI or better, I can just say, “Good job!” That leads us to Rittie Chuaprasert from here in Portland, who came in 259 out of this year’s field of 6,650 entries. That’s within the top 4%, with another 11% of the field cashing but not making it into this write-up, if it’s any consolation. Chuaprasert goes from #367 to #295. Viola, Idaho’s Michael Faulkner picked up their largest cash at 124th in the Main and goes up over five hundred places to #646. Another biggest cash was for Weston Pring of Calgary, at 101st (just before Ali Imsirovic’s father Salko at 100th, who—I believe—still lives in Vancouver, Washington, but is listed in with the WSOP and Hendon Mob as a Las Vegas resident). Pring is up about a hundred and fifty places, to #347. At 90th was Fatima Nanji out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Nanji is up ninety-one places to #239, with their own biggest cash. Nanji was one of the last two women remaining at the beginning of Day 6. Adam Walton jumps sixty-five places to #102 by coming in 42nd (and another personal best cash). Matt Jewett from Shoreline, Washington came in 28th, and doubled his lifetime earnings with the single cash, climbing more than four hundred places to #135. Finally, it’s Bellevue-based Jung Woo, whose 19th-place finish was (yet another) best-ever recorded cash. It’s just the fifth cash for Woo and makes up 96% of his total winnings. Woo’s standing on the Leaderboard goes from #5358 to #247.

Fatima Nanji

Vikas Sundhi from Bellingham and Edmonton’s Alemu Makonen came in 10th and 6th, respectively in the Wynn Fall Classic $400K GTD NLHE, a 1,438-entry tournament with a prize pool of $1.4M. Sundhi got their largest-ever cash and moves up one hundred and fourteen places to #550; Makonen holds at #54.

Jose Mendoza took 3rd in the Venetian #44 $100K GTD NLHE MonsterStack in a six-way deal that gave the Kennewick player their biggest-ever cash. Mendoza moves nearly three hundred places on the Leaderboard, to #670. Almost six hundred entries tripled the guarantee.

Seth Davies continues to put up numbers ever edition of the Leaderboard, with a 3rd in Aria/PokerGO NLHE High Roller 30. 5 players cashed in the 30-entry tournament, with former PNWer Ali Imsirovic at the top. Davies is still #1.

Renton, Washington’s Kao Saechao picked up 2nd place in Venetian #46 $75K GTD PLO, ahead of 319 other players (the prize pool tripled the guarantee), then made the final table at 8th in WSOP #71 PLO Bounty 8-Max at 8th That event had 860 entries. (Note: Bounties are not reported as part of tjhe earnings for the tournament.) Two final tables takes Saechao from #890 to #549 on the Leaderboard.

Vincent Lam from Edmonton goes up twelve places to #300 with 45th out of 3,797 at the WSOP #68 NLHE Little One for One Drop.

It was a win for Calgary’s Doug Lee, who bested 327 entries at the Autumn at Aria $40K GTD NLHE on 10 November. It appears from the payouts that there may have been a five-way deal.Lee holds at #26 on the Leaderboard.

In a blast from the past, Esther Taylor-Brady is still on the Oregon list at both Hendon Mob and WSOP. Taylor-Brady made 5th place in a field of 372 at WSOP #69 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo. Taylor-Brady remains at #28.

World Series of Poker #70 NLHE Crazy Eights 8-Max

There were 5,252 entries in this tournament, and three players from the PNW at the final three tables. Maria McAlpin moves from #646 to #577 with a 26th-place finish. 23rd is good enough to help Adam Croffut slide up four places to #96. A newcomer to the Leaderboard are Deer Kim, whose 33rd-place is enough for #3601.

New on the Leaderboard at #813 is Matt Mayima from Seattle, who posted an impressive 2nd place in WSOP #71 PLO8 Bounty 8-Max as their first recorded live cash. The field had 860 entries. That’s a nice way to start off.

Matt Mayima

Back over at the Autumn at the Aria $40K GTD NLHE on 12 November, Burnaby, British Columbia player Alen Bakovic was 2nd in a five-way deal for their biggest score and a jump of more than nine hundred places on the Leaderboard, to #1721.

Another Canadian made the (unofficial) final table of a WSOP mixed-game event when Edmonton’s Nohad Teliani came in 9th in WSOP #72 Mixed NLHE/PLO 8-Max. Teliani gets a boost of almost two hundred places, and is now #828 on the Leaderboard. There were 856 entries in this event.

Nohad Teliani

And finally, Mans Montgomery out of Eagle, Idaho notches up four spots to #156 with a 4th-place finish in the Venetian #59 $150K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. The prize pool beat the guarantee with 204 entries.

That’s it for this long-delayed edition of the PNW Poker Leaderboard. Next edition will get us caught up. I will report that I was playing a tournament online on the way to Hawai’i that I thought would be over by the time we had to shut off our computers but even though we weren’t in the money when they shut off the on-board wi-fi, I managed to glide into a min-cash because I had enough chips. The dream is alive!