This year’s not off to the banger of a start that last year was, with a four-figure win to start things off. This has been a down month, mostly due to my entry in the Portland Meadows All the Drawmaha tournament.
January started off with a couple of losses in the Beaverton Quarantine Zoom games I play; perhaps my NLHE senses are a bit off. Then it was a bubble in the old home game, which I didn’t mind so much as it was the first game with those guys in quite a while.
Pulled myself out of the hole with the next week’s Quarantine games (NLHE and PLO8 Bounty). Then dropped a chunk in the Drawmaha tournament and never got back to black.
Played 30 Ignition $2 NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Gos, down four buyins even with two $10 cashes.
And that’s the start of the new year. Coming up in February on my personal calendar is a Freezeout tournament at Last Frontier, and the Portland Poker Winter Royale, two games each at Meadows and Final Table. There are a couple of big games at the Little Creek Spring South Sound Series in early March that are intriguing as well, and of course, the PacWest Poker Classic at Chinook Winds is coming up in just five weeks!
PacWest Poker Classic schedule
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
It’s the first Leaderboard of the year! Technically, I did put out a Leaderboard early in January, but this is there first one covering events that took place in 2024, so first of the year. I’ve upped the inclusion criteria slightly, with $20,000 (US dollar equivalent) as the cutoff (also, only listing events with an ROI of 400% or more). The reason is, with longer periods between Leaderboards, the number of players who meet the requirements increases more or less geometrically (twice as long between events means roughly twice as many entries). Otherwise, I’d be here until March.
Lots of news out of Canada this installment, as World Series of Poker Circuit Calgary ran from January 10–22, more or less at the same time as WSOPC Northern California.
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
First Hendon Mob cash since the beginning of the pandemic for Martin (his most recent was 14 march 2020), the result of a deal with Raminder Singh and Jesse Lonis.
This started off months ago as the wrap-up of my uneventful and mercifully brief trip to this year’s World Series of Poker, where I made attempts on two bracelet events (Event #7 Limit Hold’em and Event #9 Seven-Card Stud), played next to a very annoying person in an Aria $50K GTD HORSE tournament, ran a pair of aces aground in a Wynn $50K GTD NLHE Survivor that would have saved my trip, and at the Orleans $50K GTD NLHE before I headed home.
But I got bored writing about it and bored thinking about people not reading it even if I finished, so I put it off until the next month, and the next month, and by September I wasn’t sure I’d ever write another post here (it’s happened before, I have a personal blog on politics, programming, books, and games that’s gone years without updates).
That’s all water under the bridge, though. I barely remember the details.
What I do remember is, I have a database of every single cash game and tournament I’ve played since Black Friday in 2011. So here are a few numbers.
Overall Stats
Nearly 500 entries in the database with only 19 cash games. 149 profits in tournaments (31.5%), but that looks better than it actually is, for reasons I’ll get to in a minute. 4% ROI overall, 9% in tournaments. I wasn’t able to make either of the Chinook Winds series this year or any of the Wildhorse events.
Ignition Casino
Most of my play this year was online on Ignition, with 385 tournaments and 2 cash games. Most of that was in the $2 Jackpot Sit-n-Gos, 3-player turbo tournaments where the payout for first place is $4 or—in a very small percentage of the games—up to $2,400. I have never seen a payout larger than the 5x multiplier for $10. I won 117 of 320, which would have been a loss of $172 except for a number of $10 payouts, so a 4% ROI.
I played a number of Irish Poker Open qualifiers and satellites in the early part of the year, then mostly stuck to Fixed-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, POLO, and PLO8 tournaments where I had a little success early on but lost money overall.
Home Games
My original home game group only got together once during the year (though I did just get an invite to the first game of 2024!) and even though I took 3rd, since I did a rebuy I lost $20. Do not rebuy in single-table tournaments inless you’re just there for the company.
The other home game is only at home for me. One of the players from the original game introduced me during the pandemic to a group that almost always meets for some $20/$25 home games using the Home Game feature of the PokerStars play money client. There’s an accompanying Zoom call, though I’m not usually on it since I just play from the living room while my wife and I are watching TV. Often, there are two—sometimes three—games during the night, usually starting out with NLHE, then a Bounty game of some sort: NLHE or PLO8. Just a couple of tables at most. Played 44 of those over the course of the year and cashed in 15 for a 25% ROI.
America’s Card Room
I had a little bit of money left on ACR at the beginning of the year, but I’d forgotten about it. Remembered it mid-year and that ACR had a better selection of non-NLHE tournaments than Ignition, so I played for a bit during the summer until I ran down my account (or did I? I’d better check). Took 4/55 in a Stud/8 tournament on my second outing and a 2/155 in a Big O Progressive Knockout, plus a bunch of min-cashes in games where I’d done a rebuy (this is called a loss), so -22% ROI over the course of 23 tournaments and 14 low-stakes Big O and Stud 8 cash games.
Portland Area
This is The Game, Final Table, and Last Frontier (in La Center). The year kicked off great at Last Frontier, where my first poker of 2023 was a three-way chop in a $10K GTD Limit Hold’em tournament. Then I thought I’d take that run and apply it at The Game’s Big O tournament where I was the first player out (after losing 25bb in NLHE cash). Back to Last Frontier for an early out in a $25K GTD NLHE tournament, and in October, Brad Press convinced me to drive up for the $8/$16 Limit Omaha 8 cash games. Waited around for those for a while, got in, and blasted away a couple hundred pretty fast.
At Final Table, I played several of the $20K GTD NLHE First Friday tournaments, never getting into the money (or closer than about 35% of the field) but there’s something about the jumps in the top of their payout structures that’s been bugging me since I noticed it last December.
A jump of $290 from 8th to 7th. Jump of $285 from 7th to 6th. Jump of $290 from 6th to 5th. $285 again from 5th to 4th. $580 jump from 4th to 3rd. 100% increase of $2880 from 3rd to 2nd. Only $2,045 increase from 2nd to 1st. Weird.
ROI for all of that: 0%. $8 profit on $2,595 costs, with everything zeroed out only by the January score at Last Frontier!
Vegas
The trip to the World Series of Poker this year was a complete bust, poker-wise. I only had one weekend, spent it at Ellis Island with my co-worker Ben, and got in a quick meet-up with Kevmath while I was waiting for Brad Press to get through to the registration desk.
My targets were two of the smallest $1500 buy-in bracelet events of the Series: #7 Limit Hold’em and #9 7-Card Stud. Didn’t make it even close to Day 2 of either one. Brad and I headed over to Aria on my third day to play the $50K GTD HORSE tournament there. I made it halfway through and suffered through a pro sitting next to me who felt entitled to reach his pinkie under my arm to flick my ante chip in when he through I was going to be too slow getting it in for the next hand. Brad did well, though, coming in 5th, and his buddy Bobby got first. I busted out and late-regged a Wynn NLHE Survivor tournament with a $5K payout that would have completely saved the trip, doubled up almost immediately, then let my aces get cracked on a paired board by Q9. My last day, it was the Orleans for a long slog in their $50K NLHE tournament where I beat two-thirds of the field but went home empty-handed.
Portland Meadows
When I was playing more often, I spent more time at Final Table than Portland Meadows, because I tried to avoid weekend games, and the bigger games at Meadows were on Saturday, while the major weekly tournaments at FT have always been on Friday night, which didn’t impact our home life as much. On the other hand, Meadows runs more non-NLHE tournaments, so I found myself drawn over there several times this year, starting with their Biggest of Os Big O tournament in February (brick), then their HEROS tournament in April (also brick). A rebuy in a little PLO tournament in August gort me halfway through the field.
Then, on a whim, I went out for a Saturday night NLHE Freezeout in September and a two-way chop. Then, the next month at the Big Bet Mix I nabbed 2nd out of the field of 55.
Back in December for the weekend of the Oregon State Championship, I busted from the NLHE day before the end of registration, but got through the 111-entry field for the Big O championship to the foinal table with the largest stack, staying that way up to the point I was heads-up with the eventual winner. Another straight -out 2nd place, no deal, no chop.
So, overall, it’s been a profitable year. More profitable if I hadn’t gone down to Vegas, but that’s probably not going to stop me from doing it again in 2024.
Enough about me! Let the wild rumpus begin!
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard: End-of-Year 2023
The last Leaderboard was almost exactly a year ago. I didn’t think I was going to run it again, but after talking to people about this here blog at the Big O tournament earlier in the month, I thought I’d check to see if the script I wrote six or seven years ago would still do the job, even though it would need to deal with a lot more data (a year’s worth of results rather than a month) and I couldn’t be sure the formats of the Hendon Mob state/province leaderboards hadn’t changed. But everything worked!
My previous methodology was to report on every player with a cash of more than $10,000 in the reporting period, but as you can guess, with a period 12 times as long (there are nearly 250 new players on the lisrt by the old measure); I’d never get a year-long Leaderboard done because, let’s face it, nobody’s paying me to do this and I’m a lazy, semi-retired poker player. So this edition is going to be sort of seat-of-the-pants*, and I’m going to look for highlights. Apologies if you should be on here for your accomplishments last year and I didn’t include you!
* After finishing this sucker off, this is the methodology:
Only new or updated players with $120K of earnings reported on Hendon Mob over the past year.
Only events with payouts of $10K or more; many of these players have other cashes through the year under $10,000.
Only events with 400% ROI. This rules out a lot of cashes that are five or even six figures where the buy-in was substantial.
Presented in reverse order of their current standing on the Leaderboard, not by the amount won in 2023, although that’s a rough gauge.
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
Nahm hasn’t shown up on the Leaderboard before because he hasn’t had a five-figure cash since I started tracking British Columbia, but he racked up four cashes at the WSOP and one at the Venetian this summer, including the PLO bracelet.
Linde had a number of other deep-ish runs in big buy-in events that ran into six figures each, but they didn’t meet my arbitrary 400% ROI metric for reporting.
The results are in! The asterisk in the title is because previous years are ranked by the finishing place of the folks on the final table, but the results for this year are by starting stack on the final table until the tournament’s done.
Years ago, I had a discussion with someone about how they thought there would never be another Main Event winner over the age of 40. That was just before Qui Nguyen won it at 39 and a couple of years before Hossein Ensan took it down at 55. Adam Walton has a significant chip lead going into the day. He’s 40.
[UPDATE] Walton did make it to Day 2 of the Final Table, but not for long. Congrats to Daniel Weinman!
Not a huge amount to report for May, I was saving up my poker time away from home for a trip to the World Series of Poker in early June (I’m already back), and there was some family stuff going on, so I only played one tournament outside the house.
Ignition NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go
I played 71 of these in May, a little more than two per day. Won in 26, which puts my cashing rate at 37%. Since these only pay double the buy-in most of the time, that’s not enough to be profitable, since the break-even point is an unsustainable 50% cash rate (even with only three players that’s not really realistic.What makes them at all profitable that eight of my wins were 5x multipliers, so I won 76 buy-ins for my 71 entries, a whopping 7% profit.
Vic’s Patio NLHE
This is one of the venues for the home game I started in, which is still a $30 tournament with a $5 add-on. I made it down to 3-handed (out of 8) after a re-buy, then lost a hand where I was ahead to Daryl and left with a cash but no profit.
Beaverton Quarantine
Friday night PokerStars Lite (and sometimes Zoom) games with friends of a friend. They do two or three games a night, and I took second in the NLHE tournament I played, then won the PLO8 game they called after that, and a NLO8 game the next week. Three for three on the month.
So May was marginally profitable. That was soon to change!
I played about 40 of these little games this month, cashing 18, for an ROI of 28%, because 5 of those cashes were in 5x payouts instead of the default 2x. Without the multiplier payouts, my ROI would have been negative. +11 buy-ins for the month, an average of 0.268 buyins/game.
I hadn’t watched “Volunteers” for maybe 20 years. Still an incredibly funny movie.
Nothing much to say about this. Had to do a rebuy half an hour in when I got it in on the flop against bottom set with a pair of aces and a nut flush draw. Made it to around 50th place.
Played the @FinalTablePDX First Friday $20K GTD and was starting to make a comeback w a third of the field left when my QQ ran into KK and I was left with only 1.5bb. Didn’t play @PortlandMeadows $300 Big Stack Saturday but they posted the payouts. Easter Poker! pic.twitter.com/bhxg8a9mmT
Meadows got about 50 entries into this order-modified HORSE tournament, which I played because I’m trying to get some more live experience in limit games before I head to the WSOP in June. Hopefully, I’ll do better in Vegas! I did place 1st in a PokerStars play money HORSE tournament!
I haven’t had to pay a bring in in ~40 hands of Stud-style games so far.
The running joke on thePoker In the Ears podcast and PokerStars Sunday Million and EPT livestreams is that it’s always #TheYearOfRomania, but I think that we can safely call 2023 #TheYearOfJordison. Coming off a win for the GPI Global Poker Awards Breakout Player early in March for a phenomenal run in 2022, Jordison and conspirator Jackie Burkhart put together the feel-good event of the year, by sponsoring (initially) eight—and so far, thirteen—veterans to play in the WSOPSalute to Warriors tournament, with packages including buy-in and expenses. She’s been doing lots of podcast appearances the past several months, including Kara Scott’s Heart of Poker at the end of the month. I can’t keep up.
Nomination/selection process is live!!
Any additional donations received between now and mid June we will use to award last minute seats to veterans that are already in Vegas and/or split up any extra money between the vets for incidental expenses (taxi,food etc) https://t.co/77jP1ETFQj
Got my Poker Tracker 4 running again. I used to be good at this IT stuff. There was some sort of issue on my Mac, the database was hinky at first, then after I got that sorted out, none of the select menus would work, which made slicing and dicing the data extremely difficult. Finally managed to import a couple years’ worth of Ignition Casino tournaments, which is good, because my old go-to for showing off hands—ShareMyPair—is no more.
Beaverton Quarantine
This little group typically plays two or three $20 or $25 tournaments on Friday night via the PokerStars Home Games play money client and Zoom (though PokerStars now has a beta video conferencing feature). They tend to be one-and-a-half tables at most, with the first game (usually NLHE) being larger and a smaller number of players for the later game or games. I usually miss the first one, but try to jump into the others when I get the opportunity. I played a PLO8 bounty tournament as my first game of the month (out 7 of 8), and my last game was a straight PLO bounty, where I took 2nd place (of 8 entries) and a couple of bounties.
Ignition Casino 2-Seat GTD NLHE Irish Poker Open Satellite Qualifier
This was my last gasp effort at making it to the Irish Poker Open, which is going on right now (click on the EPT link above to watch it on YouTube). Didn’t manage to come close.
Last Frontier Casino $25K GTD NLHE
After some success at Last Frontier early in the year in LHE, I decided to try my hand there at NLHE and ran into a bit of a buzzsaw. Ran KK into AA just over an hour in and lost the equivalent of a starting stack. With the slower structure, I still had 40bb. Managed to get to the add-on break with 5K and got an extra 15K, then ran it up to 23K (57bb by then).
18500 at the end of the first level. My buddy BP takes better photos than I do—or maybe I’m just more photogenic. pic.twitter.com/aylGyDTITy
The player on my left had been grumbling about my play most of the tournament for the first two hours after I’d raised early and called an oversized re-raise with KJs. He had TT and lost a chunk of chips early on. Two hours in, I limped K4s from the HJ, he raised to 3.5bb and SB called. I called and the flop his KKJ. SB and I checked, he bet 5K into 7K and on the assumption that #BlockersAreReal, I shoved for about 30bb. Both of them folded, he said “KJ again?” and I told him “No, king-four.” He snorted, “Figures.”
Karma, as they say, is a bitch, and poker karma is a whole pack of bitches. I picked up KK on my very next hand and raised, as one does. BB—the guy I’d run my KK into when he had AA early on—makes the call. K24 flop. He check-calls my 3.5bb bet. 4 on the turn, he checks, I bet 8bb and he calls. A on the river, He checks, I bet 8bb again and he raised to18bb. I called very reluctantly, hoping he’d over-valued two pair maybe, and he shows K3s. I managed to last about 40 minutes after that.
Ignition Casino $500 GTD PLO8 Turbo
Just 34 hands. Out well before the money.
Ignition Casino $2 NLHE Jackpot Sit-n-Go
Only won one of these of the three I played (yes, I know, that’s the random distribution) and I missed the 5x multiplier.
Ignition Casino $3K GTD NLHE PKO Turbo
Twenty percent of the buy-in goes to the bounty pool in this tournament. I managed to take down a couple of bounties, made it to the money, but never really caught wind and was pretty short-stacked by the time we got to two tables. Went out 18th when I open-shoved 6bb with Qs9s and the blinds had Ac9h and AdJd (Mutant Jack!). Flopped an open-ended straight draw, but the board double-paired and I min-cashed.
Ignition Casino $35K GTD NLHE
I’d never played this nightly tournament before but enjoyed it briefly. Never managed to get any traction above the starting stack and went out with the Portland Nuts (QcTc) v AdQd, making two pair on the river against the rivered flush.
Ignition Casino $5K GTD NLHE Thousandaire Maker
I hadn’t played one of these for nine months, and I figured I’d take a couple shots. They pay approximately 7% of the fields flat $1K on an $82 buy-in. My aces got cracked on the 20th hand of the first one when I raised UTG, got three callers, and jammed on the flop, only to have J9 with a gut-shot draw call off more than half of his stack and hit. So, nowhere near the money on that one. Did a little better on the second go, but still never made it further than the middle the field.
Coming Up
No Irish Poker Open for me, no Wildhorse Spring Poker Round-Up. There’s a lot of action here in Portland with people gearing up for the summer poker series in Vegas. I’ve already taken a stab at one of Final Table‘s First Friday $20K GTD events (they ran a special Fifth Friday $20K at the end of March). They’re running a $50K GTD on April 15th, but I’m going to miss that due to family obligations. There is a $500 buy-in Freezeout there on April 23rd, but it’s up against Portland Meadows‘ HEROES tournament and I have a hard time passing up HORSE variants. Meadows is also running a NLHE/PLO mix game on the 13th that I’m going to try to make it to. And they’ve got a Progressive Knockout with a $400 buy-in on the 29th. Then Last Frontier is running another one of their $25K GTD tournaments on April 30. And that’s just the stuff I’m trying to fit into my retired from poker guy schedule.
I also need to make my reservations for the first weekend of the WSOP. Limit Hold’em and Seven-Card Stud await!
Really, the most I can say about this tournament is that it was great to briefly see so many of my old compatriots from the Portland Players Club days, and to get a chance to play at the same table as Jeremy Harkin, for a change.
I schlepped out to Portland Meadows on the bus after work on a Friday. With the PacWest Poker Classic coming up at the end of the month, I wasn’t planning on playing much in February, but I really couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Regrettably, on the very first hand, I got into a hand with Joe Brandenburg, who, naturally, had the nuts when I had the second nuts, so I started hand 2 with half a starting stack.
I lasted about 100 minutes, but only through the benefit of a re-entry, which I only bought after going out to catch the bus home and just missing it. That stack mostly went to Jeremy.
Ignition Casino Jackpot Sit-n-Go NLHE
I played twelve of these three-person sit-n-go tournaments, and variance was kicking my butt on both ends. I actually got seated in four tournaments that had 5x payouts, but I didn’t cash in a single tournament.
Jason Brown
My old pal Jason Brown was in town for a few days from Seattle. Any long-time poker player in Portland knows Jason; we used to play what seemed like every day at Portland PLayers Club. I’ve missed him a number of trips he’s made back to town, but we finally got a chance to hang out for a while!
Ignition Casino Irish Open Sub-Qualifier NLHE
Played two of these step 1 tournaments (a win gets you into the qualified, and a win in the qualifier gets you into the satellite for a $4K package to the Irish Poker Open). One bullet in the first of these, two bullets in number two. Didn’t cash either one.
Ignition Casino Irish Open Qualifier NLHE
There were two levels of qualifiers for the IPO on Ignition. Both were competing for various guarantees of $270 satellite tickets. Most were $25+$2.50 turbos, but there were some $20+$2 non-turbo events, as well. Dropped two buy-ins in the turbo, then two in a $20 event and managed to win a satellite seat
In case anyone thinks Dara isn't at least some kind of poker demi-god, my entreaty and his "good luck" did work. It's a lot easier than reading the books, though you should buy them for the shrine even if you don't plan to read them.https://t.co/XfE56CpbMCpic.twitter.com/Nq2y7V7WyA
Ignition Casino Irish Poker Open 5 Ticket GTD NLHE Satellite
Never really managed to get any traction in this satellite, barely climbed above 150% of starting stack and finished in the middle of the pack. There was a more than 50% overlay on the tournament, with only 37 total entries and 80 as the breakeven point for the guaranteed packages ($1200 for the IPO Main Event entry and $2800 in travel expenses).
Ignition Casino $500 GTD NLHE KO Turbo
I prefer to play the Omaha games for fun, but I decided to try a bounty NLHE tournament for a change. Things went well from the beginning, with me nearly tripling up in the first ten hands, then doubling that up against another player who’d gotten off to a good start when I flopped a set of jacks and they turned a set of threes and thought they were golden. Things faltered a bit later in the game, but I took enough bounties before we eve3n hit the money to pay off the entry fee, and I placed 8th of 97 entries for a small cash.
Ignition Casino $5K GTD NLHE Turbo
No luck here, I got in late with 12bb and was out about 15 hands later.
Ignition Casino $500 PLO8 Turbo
These little tournaments that run about 9pm Pacific are some of my favorites. I feel less stressed about late-regging them than I do NLHE games. That said, the first one I played, I came in with 10bb and was out in four hands. The second one, I started a bit earlier andfinished in 3rd place out of 78, which was pleasing. Extra satisfying because it happened the day after we’d gotten our power back after a branch broke the connector line to our house.
Ignition Casino Irish Open Qualifier NLHE
As the month wound down, I played three more qualifiers to try to get the Irish Open pacvkage. Dropped a total of three buy-ins in two of the Turbo edition (which ran more often than the other) without success. Once again, it was the cheaper, slower qualifier where I won the ticket, which I know, it makes no sense.
Ignition Casino Irish Poker Open 8 Ticket GTD NLHE Satellite
I was supposed to be in Lincoln City for the PacWest Poker Classic the last weekend of February. It’s been five years since I had my biggest-ever cash , at Chinook Winds in February, and I was jonesing to beat that, but after two days of no power and barely getting things back to normal Friday afternoon, I didn’t really feel like abandoning my wife for four days—despite the house not being 50 degrees even with the woodstove going—was a politic move. Plus, I’d planned to take two days off for the series, but I had to take two days to deal with electricians and keep the fire burning. So I welcomed the opportunity to take advantage of another heavily-overlaid Irish Open satellite. And it was, but again, I never managed to get a purchase, and busted out after a couple of hours.
Ignition Casino Irish Poker Open 5 Ticket GTD NLHE Satellite
I was torn about playing this next-to-last satellite. First, I didn’t have a satellite ticket to play it, so I’d need to buy in directly. Second, it started about a quarter-hour after I got off work, and I typically walk home, plus, I was cooking dinner, so it’d be a bit deeper in the tournament than I wanted by the time I was able to join. Still, there’s almost three hours of entry in these satellites. So I got home and made dinner, then jumped in about Level 8, with 75bb. The downfall here was I made a horribly bad call just nine hands in, too-cautiously laying down a king-high flush draw from the SB on a paired flop. Never managed to get above starting stack. There is one more satellite in March, but I’m not sure whether I want to try for it at this point, or wait for my next opportunity to go to Ireland.
Who am I kidding?
Coming Up
I’ve been seriously thinking about driving to Lincoln City for the Main Event of the PAC West, but I could stay in town and play the $20K GTD at Final Table this Friday, or I could go up to Last Frontier for their $25K on Sunday.
I didn’t play much poker to start off the fourth year of my poker retirement, but it was reasonably successful, probably because of that.
Last Frontier Casino $10K Guarantee Limit Hold’em
I was both intrigued and a little worried when I saw poker room manager Chris Canter post the notice for this one last month. Washington State’s poker room regulations only allowed limit for a number of years, and it was Last Frontier’s bread-and-butter, so I was expecting some serious LHE crushers to show up for this, but I went anyway.
Never played much of it myself, except in HORSE and other mixed game rotations, and it’s definitely not my strongest game in HORSE (like every other HORSE player, my strongest game is Razz).
I got off to a fast start, despite the presence at the table of some long-time players who were re-bonding after not seeing each other at the tables for a while. They included Kevin Erickson, who was the runner-up for an LHE bracelet at the 2021 WSOP. Fortunately, he was balanced to another table after a short while. I was leading the table for a time.
Three hours in and I was still above the pack—sometimes considerably so. In the fourth hour, my stack hit more than double the tournament average, though I’d dropped down to about one-and-a-half average after that. Ran into a former co-worker of my late brother-in-law, who I’d met at the tables in the past.
The stack managed to stay healthy as we approached the money with just three tables. As I noted on Twitter, the 12th-place prize was less than the buyin+entry.
When we consolidated to two tables, I ended up next to Korey Payne, who said hello, but I knocked him out dirty A7 > AK not long after the money bubble broke.
Also got to catch up a bit with a different Kory, one of the regulars from my Portland Players Club days, who’d won the $25K GTD NLHE at Last Frontier a couple of weeks before. He took over the chip lead at the final table as the guy who came to the final with a bu=ig stack managed to blast it away, first to me, then to Kory. We started whittling away at the shorter stacks. I picked off 6th with the Robbie Jade Lew hand (J4o) when I had over 300K on the 15K big blind and just had to call 10K for his all-in.
When we hit three players, Kory had the lead by a good bit, and the other player and I were swapping 2nd and 3rd. Then I pulled in a chunk of chips, and non-Kory proposed an even chop, which I was rather surprised Kory—with more than twice his stack and half again mine—agreed to. I agreed, naturally, and #3 and I went to the payout desk. Kory went into the field of cash players and did some consulting with a friend, coming back to tell me his friend had suggested he should have held out for an ICM deal. Personally, I think that would have been a better option, rather than readily agreeing to the even chop immediately, but I just ran the numbers through Icmizer, to show him the difference.
Beaverton Quarantine NLHE Bounty
For some reason, my long-time home game never went online during the worst of the pandemic (I first got the inkling it was going to be bad when one of the guys in the group who works in virology at OHSU backed out of a game we had scheduled in March 2020). But Kate, one of the folks I met through that group, invited me last year to a far-flung Friday night game that had gotten together via PokerStars Lite Home Games and Zoom. They typically play two or three $20-$25 games—usually NLHE or PLO8—get enough players for one or two tables, and Matt handles the money. All very friendly. I don’t usually get into the Zoom conference because of where I’m playing from, and I usually miss the first game, but this night I caught the Bounty tournament, busted just short of the money, and didn’t pick up a single bounty.
The Game $10K Guarantee Big O and 1/2 NLHE
I misremembered the start time of this tournament. I was running a little late, I thought, until I turned into the parking lot of The Game and it was almost empty. I should have turned around and skipped it. When I went in, there was a single cash table running and I learned I was two hours early. I thought I’d read for a couple hours, but the urge to play got the best of me and I grabbed one of the empty cash game seats. I hovered around my buy-in for an hour or so, then got it in bad with AK < KT on a KTx flop and the two pair held. Players on the button could call some games, as well, so there were some of the inevitable bomb pots, and 5-2-2, which is a double-board Big O game that’s popular with degenerates.
Speaking of which, the Big O tournament lasted less time than I waited for it to start (at least for me), because I kept insisting on risking things with just low draws. I could have just lit that money on fire (see below).
Beaverton Quarantine Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Bounty
The second game in the last BQ poker night for the month was somewhat successful, I took 2nd place (out of 6, plus a rebuy) and two half-bounties (split-pot knockouts).
Snowman Num-Num
For years, a piece of They Might Be Giants 20th anniversary swag was my go-to hoodie for playing poker. It featured a piece of art from their first EP: a cartoon snowman warming their mitts over a fire of burning money. It just somehow seemed appropriate.
Poker Mutant goes to the 2012 Pendleton Poker Round-Up Main Event.
I was wearing it the night I won a seat to the Pendleton Poker Round-Up Main Event at Players Club (and my wife had an unrelated heart attack the next morning). I was wearing it when I had my largest-ever cash, at Chinook Winds, placing 3rd out of a 462-entry field (how is that five years ago?).
But given tat TMBG has been around forever now, the 20th-anniversary hoodie is itself two decades long in the tooth, with the black faded and the screen printing cracked and the seam on the hood torn several inches. They hadn’t ever revived the design for a hoodie.
Until this winter, when they announced a red version. Which I promptly ordered two of. I didn’t need a daily-use poker hoodie any longer, but I do walk a couple miles to work and back, and I can always use a couple extras during the winter (I did get a very nice PokerStars hoodie when I was on the Poker In the Ears podcast a couple years ago).
The package arrived quickly and when I got home I opened it immediately, only to have that familiar sausage-squeezed-into-casing feeling when I slid the first of the new hoodies on. Had I put on (more) weight? Was XL the new XXL? No, the invoices and packaging said XXL, but the tag on the hoodie itself said XL.
So that seems like a big screw-up, probably on the part of the clothing/silkscreen contractor, and probably something that wasn’t particular to my order, which was confirmed when I contacted the seller to swap them out.
So, if you play against me anytime this month, it’s the old, ratty hoodie you’ll be seeing.
All good things must come to an end, and the same is true for this feature of Mutant Poker. The ##PNWPokerLeaderboard has been running for nearly six years, since back at the end of April 2017.It’s been interesting and entertaining, but it does take a fair amount of time, which I could be using to rewatch episodes of the original The Addams Family.
So I’m going to take a little break from this, after one last mega-Leaderboard, which wraps up 2022 (mostly). Still hope to see some of you folks on my infrequent forays out onto the local tables.
Coming Up at Last Frontier
Two events for the new year have already been announced at Last Frontier: Next Sunday (8 January) is a $10K GTD Limit Hold’em tournament, with a $25K GTD NLHEtournament on Sunday, 29 January. Both events start at noon, both are a $235 buyin with no rebuy. The NLHE event has a $100 add-on.
PNW Poker Leaderboard
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
I’m thanking my lucky stars it hasn’t been too busy since Halloween. It’s picking up, though, despite the approaching holidays. Enough that since I ran the numbers on Saturday, perennial blog favorite Angela Jordison almost got her hands on a WSOP Circuit Ring in the Main Event at Durant. Don’t miss her interview on this podcast.
Many thanks to @EastOregonQueen for tagging me in posts about the Wildhorse Fall Poker Round-Up this past week. The final results (and the dates for Spring) are below; check out the Twitter account (assuming that’s still a thing by the time I post this) for more results.
The Game ran two big buy-in events last weekend, including a $300+$150 Big O tournament last weekend (no idea how many players, I wasn’t able to make it, much against the siren song of 5 cards). Final Tableran a $500 Freezeout a week ago (also tugging at me) and has a $200 bounty tournament on Saturday (11/19) at noon.
Coming up in December, Portland Meadows has NLHE and Big O Freezeout championships.
Out of town, Little Creek Casino west of Olympia has a Mini Series running in early December.
That’s enough from me!
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
Congratulations Richard Jeffrey, winner of the Wynn Fall Classic $500 Seniors Event on October 17. Mr. Jeffrey earned $19,416 for his first place finish. Well played! pic.twitter.com/XHqKgnFJdn
Kevin Roope earned the single day victory in the Wynn Fall Classic $1,600 NLH $500 Bounty, taking home $23,243. Congratulations Kevin! pic.twitter.com/3JbtR0p4O5
This is one of our all-time favorite winner-and-rail photos as @houseofcardspdx chops HU with Paul Sampson in the @PeppermillPoker Main Event, Sampson gets the medal and $52k, Bernard $50k and Bruno on her rail pic.twitter.com/RMhNYxIiKw
