The first week of the poker month went off pretty well, when I took first in an 18-entry Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo tournament onnline at Chainsaw Poker, then the booby prize a few days later in another Stud/8. Even with three losses in several other Chainsaw events and an entry into the satellite for the Portland Meadows Main Event, I was in the black until (forgoing the Main Event itself), I got into the Portland Meadows Main Event Series Big O.
Then it was another 12 straight cashless games: a couple of online Beaverton QUarantine home games (PLO/8 Bounty and No Limit Hold’em), and a variety of Chainsaw Poker Omaha/8, PLO, and Stud/8 games.
Had a good run in my original home game out in Sherwood (after a rebuy), when I rivered a flush against a set as one of the two big stacks at our short-handed table. Ended up doing an ICM chop heads-up on that one.
Dropped an 8-Game Mix after that on Chainsaw, then cruel fate took me out of the PLO/8 game I played Halloween night when the river sucked away my chips.
My actual plans are pretty sparse for November. I do have the WIldhorse Fall Poker Classic $5K Added NLHE Main Event on the radar mid-month, then the Portland Meadows Oregon State Championship for NLHE andBig O on the 23rd and 24th, respectively. I have been hoping to get up to Last Frontier Casino again for their $8/16 Omaha/8 cash games on Mondays and Thursdays to play with my buddy Brad. Final Table has a Deepstack Frezeout and so an extra mid-month $20K GTD, so I may have to get my butt over there, too.
I’ve got to say, I’m a fan of bothFinal Table and Portland Meadowsputting advanced schedules out! Here’s the latest, but check their respective web sites for updates.
Continuing my streak of low-volume poker months, September inched up just a bit from August, but still only 18 tournaments. September’s always tough, with some family stuff happening right around the fall Chinook Winds series every year, so I didn’t make it down this month. Overall, the month was even.
Old School NLHE
My original home game got back together for the first time in several months, and mirable dictu, there were some new folks, brought in the The Marvelous Kate. It’s been literal years since we’ve had enough for a second table. Started off with 12, I made it through half the field.
The Council NLHE
A chance encounter at the grocery store led to an invitation to a $20 game with some local politics folks. Aside from bottom-level volunteering on a couple campaigns about 15 years ago, my last brush with politics was when I ran for the Oregon Legislature back in 1994, but it was entertaining to listen to the current gossip even if I didn’t know who was the subject. Also, I took 2/13. It would have been 1st, but my 3-bet shove pre-flop with AK got called by KJ and the J hit on the flop. He just barely had me covered after knocking out 3rd place.
Chainsaw Poker
Sixteen tournaments with this online mixed games group named for Allen Kessler. PLO, PLO/8, 7-Card Stud/8, HORSE, and 8-Game Mix. Four profits and a min-cash in a game I re-entered. Three runner-up finishes (not quite as impressive when the fields are mostly between 10-15 entries). Tried for a satellite ticket into their series of bigger buyins, but no dice.
Coming Up
October is off to a decent start already. Next week is Portland Meadows’Main Event Series, featuring a Big O tournament Thursday and their $1000 buyin on Saturday. There’s a $30K GTD at Final Table the Saturday after that (the 19th). And the week after that is the High Mountain Emerald Valley Poker Classic in Eugene.
I don’t know if there’s a month since I started this blog when I’ve played as little poker as I did last month. Is it because the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard is kaput? Maybe. Maybe I’m just getting tired of losing.
Only eight tournaments in July. All online. Three of the Beaverton Quarantine series (all NLHE) and five on Chainsaw Poker (PLO, PLO8, and HORSE). Not much to say. Missed the first Chinook WindsSummer Classic Poker Tournament.
Coming up in (the last half of) August, my old home game is getting back together, we’ve got a house guest that I might be avoiding by playing some evening poker, there’s the start of the Little Creek South Sound Championship which I might try to get to, and the Portland Meadows Wild West Poker Tour.
And I finally got the little profit I made on WSOP.com after two months!
This trip had been on the books for a couple of months. My long-time poker travel partner David had been making a lot of trips to Vegas for cash games and offered me part of a comped room at the Flamingo. Booked the flight on Alaska for a Sunday morning to Friday night with points; how could I not go?
David and I booked the same flights by sheer chance, so we met up at PDX early Sunday morning, split a ride to the Flamingo, and checked into the room early because of someone’s Diamond Plus status (not mine).
The view was pretty good, once you overlook the roof. I mean, we really overlooked the roof. My wife says the towers at Caesar’s Palace remind her of grain elevators.
We got settled in, then headed over to the Paris/Horseshoe complex. I’d pre-registered through Bravo Poker Live for WSOP Event #27 $1,500 Big O but needed to go through FasTrac verification. No line at the desk, got my tickets there, then wandered off to see where my table was.
Micah Bell stopped by my table before play started, telling me I should play better than I did when I knocked him out of a Big O tournament last December. Apparently, I didn’t take his words to heart, because I only lasted about three-and-a-half hours while Micah made it to Day 2. That was it for me for the day, though I did go get set up with a new WSOP.com account. I did have the honor of holding up the bottom of the chip counts because I was updating with the MyStack app from PokerNews
I was at the bottom of the listing even before I busted the Big O.
So that was an inauspicious beginning. Down $1,500 to start the week. Went back to the room and headed over to Ellis Island, where Dave picked up the bill for the $10 prime rib dinner at their restaurant.
Monday
The next event on my schedule wasn’t until the afternoon; Brad Press convinced me to head over to the OrleansCasino for a $30K GTD with a $300 buy-in that started at 11. Didn’t go great, managed to get tens in against queens and I was out before the end of re-entry.
The new-ish Milestone Satellite format they’re running for the mega satellites at the WSOP was something I hadn’t played, and I wasn’t sure how my style of play would work; I’m not usually a big stack until the end (if ever). As it happens, my first experience with it in the 3pm $250 buy-in (paying out $2K chunks) did not go well, with me buying out of Level 1 with 20 seconds to go. Tens again.
There were only 23 players in the satellite by then (it got up to 85 by the end) but I elected to jump into the Monday HORSE Deepstack, in preparation for Wednesday’s bracelet event. I lasted longer there (after waiting about thirty minutes for tables to open up), but nowhere near long enough.
Got back to the room too late to catch David for the prime rib dinner, and feeling a little burned by four straight whiffs, decided to fire up some low-stakes online action. Played a $500 GTDPLO 6-Max PKO through about half the field, then caught some wind in a $1K GTD NLHE 6-Max Super Turbo and came in fourth out of 82. Busted out of a $150 GTD PLO 6-Max Turbo and another NLHE 6-Max Super Turbo (with a $400 guarantee), so by the end of the day I was only down $2,264.
Tuesday
Tuesday was the second bracelet event I had on my list, the $1,500 Seven Card Stud. It’s the smallest-field bracelet event in my budget—only 406 entries this year—but I decided to pass it by for some smaller games. Struck out in a quick $1K GTD NLHE Turbo before I headed out to South Point Casino to meet up again with Brad before he headed home. I was hoping to pick up some of his turnaround energy—he’d had a bad few days on his trip before final tabling at South Point three times and once in a Milestone Satellite at Orleans.
I battled through about three-and-a-half hours of a $10K GTD NLHE tournament, making it past the end of registration and about 60% of the field before the end came (Brad went on to another final table; he also won a seat to their $50K Tournament of Champions Freeroll).
Late-registered the $4K GTD Omaha Hi-Lo that was about to begin and managed to bust in Level 4.
Back to the Horseshoe for the 7pm $580 NLHE Landmark Satellite. That only lasted 4 levels, too. Tens were once again my bane. Ended the day $3,064 in the hole.
Wednesday
Event #35 $1,500 HORSE didn’t start until 2pm, so I started the day started playing 0.10/0.20 PLO on WSOP.com. Clawed back $5. Jumped into a $1K GTD NLHE Turbo and made the final table out of 172 entries ($49). Just missed the money in the $1K NLHE Fast Mini Mystery Bounty but I picked up $6 in bounties. Busted the $750 GTD NLHE Deepstack Super Turbo, then took a bit of a flier on the $55 buy-in (all my buy-ins so far we’re $11 or less) $5K NLHE Fast Mystery Bounty, but only made it half-way through the field.
Shortly after the tournament began, one of the floor people pulled the chair out of seat 3 and maneuvered a fancier chair into place. Then Mike Matusow showed up and pointed a stick at the table and said “What’s your name?”
View from Table 53, Seat 1.
“Uh, me?” I managed to get out, not recognizing the box on the end of the stick as a camera.
“Yeah.”
“Uh, Darrel,” I said, using all the wit assigned to me at birth. Matusow then went around the table getting peoples’ names and said it would be online (still don’t have any idea where or if, so you can’t see me making a doofus of myself).
A repeat cash in HORSE was not to be. I don’t believe I ever managed to get above the starting stack, and a guy on my immediate right had me pipped on every hand where I thought I might be a winner, including one hard-contested Razz hand where he rivered a wheel on my A2346. Just could not beat him.
I got the full dose of the Mouth, more than four hours of complaints about how he’d only won 24 hands in the series up to that point, and some reactionary politics when Jeff Lisandro joined the table at the other end.
Back to the Flamingo after five-and-half hours, where David and I had a late dinner at Virgil’s on the LINQ Promenade. It was still warm outside according to the thermostat on the wall next to us.
THURsday
Back to the smaller stakes. Orleans had another $30K guarantee at 11am and I headed that way even though it was just Hold’em. It had a very late end to registration—about seven hours—and I only lasted about 4, but I did see one of those crazy hands that crop up all over Las Vegas during the summer: a four-way all-in pre flop that pitted jacks against queens against kings against aces. The aces somehow held to scoop.
I texted Brad to verify my decision on whether to play the Razz tournament that had just started or get back in the $30K with just 20bb. Razz it was. I figured it was time to start drinking.
Razz was another strike for me. Four more hours, made it through about half the field of 199. But overall a pretty pleasant experience. One of the players from my HORSE table who’d been sitting on the other side of Matusow was there, and I met the gregarious Carlos, who introduced me to an online group of mixed-game players. So, not an entirely fruitless day at the Orleans.
David had some free drink coupons as a valued Caesars Diamond member and had already picked up a Bailey’s slushy at O’Shea’s on the promenade, so we headed over to get three more. When we got back to the room, I jumped into a $55 $3K GTD NLHE PKO 6-Max Turbo, got a couple bounties then knocked out and re-entered to place 6th of 84. Not a huge profit, but something. Played a $150 GTD PLO 6-Max Turbo and a $500 GTD PLO PKO 6-Max, then min-cashed (17/158) a $1K GTD NLHE before I went to bed.
FRIday
My flight (and David’s) didn’t leave until after 8pm. I’d noted that when Brad made the final tables of his South Point events, it was six-ish, so I figured that if I made it to the money in their morning event I should have just enough time to get to the airport.
Reasonably certain I got angled on my second hand when a player tossed in 5100 (still at 100/200) with a “Did I do that?” speech. I shoved my A9s and he had AQ. It was back to registration.
Four and a half hours in with 18bb, I squeezed from the SB with A7s over there lines. One of the limps was 99, he called, I hit the ace on the turn. When I texted back to Brad about the hand, his response was “Stop it!!! You’re killing me”.
By the time we got to the bubble at 36 players, my stack was down to 18bb, but that was still 150% of the average. It wasn’t exactly a leisurely structure.
I mostly folded for the next 40 minutes, drifting down to 11bb—though that was still above the chip average. Then just before the break, I picked up TT on the button, two short stacks before me shove, and I swoop in to the pot against a lower pair and a ragged ace. I hit a set on the flop to seal the deal.
Next orbit after the break, QQ on the button and I double up to 700K after making a full house against T9s.
The inflection point for me was another 20 minutes on, about six hours into the game, when I 3-bet QT of clubs and the table chip leader shoved. It folded back to me and I thought about it for longer than usual, then put my trust in the Portland Nuts and called against AK. Two clubs on the flop and another on the turn, and I was over a million chips.
We were still at 14 players and it was creeping closer to the time I was going to have to start thinking about making it to the airport. Action went fast, though, and in just ten minutes we were down to the final table. Half an hour later, we were at 5. We had a break and an ICM chop was proposed. There was a little tussling about who’d win the seat into South Point’s Tournament of Champions, but the rules said it had to go to the person with the most chips at the time of any deal and that they’d penalize people if they thought there was any dumping going on.
Anyway, it took a few minutes to run the numbers. I came out on top by just 0.3%. Plus, I got the ToC seat that I can’t play because I’ve got a thing in Portland that day. The list of eligible players was just posted, with 158 names on it. There’s $50K guaranteed with $10K up top and 60 places paid, so the EV’s pretty high to start with and with people like myself not able to make it, even better.
Congratulations to our Final 5 in today's 10am $100 daily tournament. Darrell finished as our chip leader so he earns his ToC seat and $2200+. We had 257 entries and a $20k+ prize pool#MorningGrind@southpointlvpic.twitter.com/WLyaOpWESZ
It didn’t come anywhere close to wiping out the losses from the first five days, but it did stanch the bleeding a bit so the losses were basically down the cost of the two bracelet events.
Other Poker for June
The week before Vegas, I just played a couple of the Beaverton Quarantine home games, then three more in the weeks after I got back. They were a complete loss.
The only other live poker for the month was the Portland Meadows NLHE 50/50 Bounty, where half the buy-in goes into your bounty. I came in late and watched a guy who’d open-jammed twice with 40bb. I raised the queen-ten on my first playable hand and he jammed a third time. I snapped it off and doubled up versus nines. Didn’t quite make it to the money, but I did take a bounty.
First orbit went great, but after that it was just a downhill slide with not a lot of Playable cards. Made it down within sniffing distance of the money but no luck. Not a total loss I did get a bounty. pic.twitter.com/P34TEiF0cY
My new poker venue is a private online club with nothing but mixed games, 1- or 2-table fields for the most part, running six or seven tournaments like Razz, Badugi, 5-Card PLO, Stud8, 8-Game, PLO8, 2-7 Triple Draw, and more. I love it, though I’m only 1 for 10 so far.
#PNWPokerLeaderboard: I’m Not Human, I’m a Mutant
For more than seven years now, I’ve been running the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard in one form or another. First as a series of write-ups of manually-selected standout players from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and eventually as a list that included everyone who fit my criteria and including players from British Columbia, Alberta, and Alaska.
Throughout that time, the Leaderboard was made possible by a certain amount of automation. I wrote a routine that pulled in data from The Hendon Mob‘s state and province leaderboards, then stuffed the player and income data into a database which allowed me to compare earnings over time to see who’d made the most money since the last Leaderboard.
The Leaderboard suffered only one major snag (apart from the amount of time it still took to put things together after the routine had done its thing), a few years ago when THM slightly modified the code of the leaderboard pages and the routine choked. I had to make a decision then whether to spend the time to figure out how to fix it or not. I did it.
Then last year, I kind of ran out of steam myself as I was playing less and less often. I said it was the end, then lit it back up at the first of the year.
But I think we’ve reached the end of the journey for real this time. Not because I’ve given up on poker, I was just down in Las Vegas (as you can see above), not because I don’t want to talk about all the people cashing big-time in the first month of this year’s WSOP. Nope, it’s a CAPTCHA issue. Hendon Mob has implemented a tool to prevent robots from crawling their site scraping information, as is their right. It’s been a fun project, but there’s no way forward. My apologies to anyone who was hoping to see their 2024 WSOP cashes represented.
May turned out to be the calm before the storm of the WSOP for me. I only played nine tournaments the whole month, with most of those being in the virtual Beaverton Quarantine home game (four cashes, in NLHE and NLHE Bounty) for a meagre 126% ROI. The loss (bigger) came from the three events I entered at the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, though I did manage to pick up one min-bounty in Event #6 PLO Assassins PKO Bounty (the entire prize pool was bounties!)
That leaves either well-rested or unprepared for next weekend’s trip to Las Vegas, where the bracelet events on my list are Event #27 Big O, Event #32 Seven-Card Stud, and Event #35 HORSE (the only bracelet event I’ve ever cashed in). Plus—depending on how things go—some of the Milestone Satellites and the Monday HORSE Deepstack. Maybe something on WSOP.com if I can figure out how screwed up my account is after six years of inactivity.
Chinook Winds Debuts Summer Series
Earlier, as I as getting ready to publish this, Chinook Winds dropped the schedule for their first Summer Classic Poker Tournament, featuring a $200K GTD Main Event and a mid-week TORSE event (with Limit Triple Draw 2-7 replacing Limit Hold’em in the rotation).
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.
While everyone was watching Adam Nattress in Event #4 (see below), Mollala’s Smith snuck through nearly 3,600 other players to grab an exceptionally good first Hendon Mob cash.
Word went out on Day 2 that Adam was in the top 10% of the players at the end of Day 1. Then he powered his way to a not-insignificant lead by the end of Day 2. But the headline on the day-end wrap-up mentioned Jamie Kerstetter and “Miami” John Cernuto (and had pictures of both of them) but no Nattress. I knew Adam was too nice a guy to make anything out of it, but Karen-ed the heck out of it.
The Day 3 opening report had a pic of Adam but his name was initially missing from the headline. It was corrected relatively soon. Squeaky wheels, folks! You only get into these positions very rarely; make sure you get the credit you deserve!
Another month of nothing good to report! 14 shots at the Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go, just 3 cashes and none of them any higher payout than 2x buy-in. I got a couple of tickets from America’s Cardroom for satellites and a ticket from Ignition for their $2500 GTD Freeroll and nothing came of those.
Just a min-cash in one of three Beaverton Quarantine home game bounty tournaments (and a bare bounty in another), plus three bricks in non-bounty tournaments. Thankfully, those aren’t expensive.
After a five-month hiatus, I went back to the Final Table $20K GTD NLHE First Friday tournament, where I only made it though half the field, but had a very nice interaction about the blog with Brian Barker, who won a quarter-million in a World Poker Tour tournament last fall (as well as a bunch of other stuff). It was a fun evening, but too short.
Capped off the month trying to catch the lightning in a bottle at the Portland Meadows Big Bet Mix 6-Max. I’d taken second somehow last fall but only made it to 25th this time, doing quite well sitting with the likes of Jeremy Harkin and Joe Brandenburg, then less well sitting with my nemesis Butcher.
They modified the structure to add another level before break, at 61K I’m about 10K behind my pace on the last game, but still about 1.5 average. pic.twitter.com/0fJKtnSI3x
Next week is the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, of which I’m planning to play the Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday events. (Wheel of Chaos, baby!) Not sure what the rest of May holds, but I’m just over a month out from my trip to the World Series of Poker.
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.
Event #17 $40,000 Guaranteed NL Hold’em Big Bounty
I intended to play this cautiously. Not going recklessly after bounties; from experience I know there are a lot of them to gather up toward the end.
Things kicked off pretty fast. The table next to us had two all-in hands right away; Jerry Mouwad knocked a player out on our table, all in the first 15 minutes. There was another elimination from the table by the end of the second level.
Got a couple snorts of derision from the other players when I open-folded aces from the small blind on a paired board with three spades by the turn, when the big blind player in the hand bet out 11bb. Establishing the image of the tight old player with a They Might Be Giants sweatshirt. “Why is the snowman burning money?” asked one of the dealers.
My stack was up to only about 35K from the 27K starting stack by the end of the third level, then 40K at the end of Level 6 when registration ended. I kept plugging away through the next two hours to the next break, taking three hands out of four at one point, but still no bounties.
My big break came about six hours in when I raised, from UTG, got two calls, then 3-bet by a played in late position for about half my stack. I had suited ace-king and put all 58K in the middle. He called with queens. King and ten on the flop, but he picked up a set of queens. Then a river jack gave me Broadway. “Did you think I wasn’t going to call?” he asked after the hand was over, which seemed a little odd. Still didn’t get a bounty chip (aside from my own) until half an hour later after a table change.
I’d had pretty good luck with making sets of tens, so when I got them in the small blind at the end of the sixth hour, I was hopeful. An early position player raised and was shoved on by a shortish stack in middle position for 15bb. I called the all-in, then the opening player shoved as well, for another 15bb. At the time I was still over 80b, and called. The EP player had AK, the MP player had AT, and the board ran out to give them a wheel straight.
Another table change and we were down to 78 players. There were a couple of very short stacks and I managed to pick up two bounties before dinner break, making it up to 175K (44bb) for my high point before losing about 12bb after laying down a couple hands (including kings) after the flop.
We went to dinner break with 54 players left, two tables to the money. 33bb for me. I cashed out the three bounties I’d picked up, then zipped up to the 60s Cafe & Diner at the top of the hill to grab a burger and a boozy shake. I sort of had to wolf things down to get back in time, but perhaps I should have eaten more leisurely and not worried about getting back for the first — or more importantly, the second — hand. I had 25bb on the button and picked up ace-king of diamonds. One of the big stacks on the table opened for just over 2bb, and another player called. I ripped in my stack, which I probably didn’t need to do, though I think it was the right move, just at the wrong time, because after some thought, the original raiser called with kings, which held, and I was out.
Here are some final table payouts for the series as of mid-day Friday. Friday night’s Main Event Mega-Satellite paid out 30 vouchers, double the guarantee.
Arrived late to registration for Event #1 $100,000 Guaranteed NL Hold’em because I let Google Maps steer me to a different route than my usual path to Lincoln City and it lost the cell connection, so instead of taking a detour to a scenic path to the coast, I ended up turning around at Champoeg Park and having to backtrack, which got me into town twenty minutes after the game started. So, instead of buying in with no line, there were people lined up from the top of the escalator (which wasn’t working, great timing, escalator!), around the corner down the hall to the tournament room, and the length of the tournament room. So it was just over an hour in to the tournament before I was registered.
That said, things went pretty well off the bat. Within twenty minutes I managed to river the nuts with an ace-high flush and got paid off by the second nuts. With action before it went heads-up, I nearly doubled the 22K (20K with a dealer appreciation) starting stack.
My stack kept climbing by bits for the next few levels, then just before the second break and the end of re-entry, I got queens in the big blind. There was a raise and several calls ahead of me, including a player who’d been the chip leader in the first several levels (but was no longer). I pushed it up to 5x the raise and she was the only caller. I hit my set on a king-high board and bet, then she shoved over the top and I called, naturally, She had a king but no flush draw or anything else, and I knocked her out to get up to 150bb.
QQ in the big blind at 300/600 and I 3-bet to 10K over a raise to 2K (and 4 callers) and get 2 calls. KQ4 flop and I bet 15K, aggressive former big stack shoves and I get a KO. Just under 90K going to break 2. pic.twitter.com/9vesoPMhSP
Then, after the break, when I was big blind, it was aces, and queens got it in against me. Or, I should say, queens ended up getting it in against me, because the player in the small blind re-raised me with what almost everyone (including me) assumed was his full stack. I called and flipped my cards over, then he flipped his cards over, but when the board ran out, he revealed that he still had 2bb behind. The floor got called and the ruling was that all of the chips were in when he flipped his cards over. I didn’t really care about the chips, and admitted I’d probably been at fault for not verifying the all in before I called and flipped my cards over, but the ruling stood.
We went to dinner after 9 levels and I’d hit 120K, which was to be my high point for the day. Got a table change, and even though I started off as the nominal big stack there, I couldn’t get any traction. I mostly lost chips, then got some back, but I was dwindling slowly but surely as we got closer and closer to the money.
Nearly got knocked out less than 10 from the money when I raised king-queen from the small blind and the short stack in the big blind shoved for 2/3 of my stack with jacks. I paired up, but he made a set on an ace-high flop, which gave me some straight outs, but no dice and I found myself down to 5bb on the button.
Suddenly, I started getting hands again, with ace-king suited two times in four hands. Another shove with king-queen worked and I was up to 12bb, Squeaked through two rounds of hand-for-hand play, and we were done for the night, coming back to 10bb on St. Patrick’s Day.
Not a positive month! On the Ignition NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go front, 21 games and 8 cashes, but I narrowly lost the 5x payout games I got into, so I’m down 5 buyins for the month.
Only played 3 of the Beaverton Quarantine games in February. They’re every Friday night, usually a couple of games a night, over the PokerStars Home Game system. Had a good January, cashing 3 out of 7 games but I busted all three of the February tournaments I played.
Drove out to Last Frontier early in the month for their Freezeout tournament and I was one of the early busts.
Then there was the Portland Winter Royale, a joint venture over four days at Portland Meadows and Final Table. I just played the Meadows tournaments, making it halfway through the opening Freezeout tournament, then having to rebuy after just one round in the $500 Saturday event when a guy sitting into the big blind immediately to my right said “This might be my best hand of the day” before he’d looked at his cards (at least I thought it was before he looked, self-doubt started creeping in almost immediately). I had queens under the gun, raised, and called a 4-bet from him pre-flop, then continued after his check on the six-high flop, he raised, and I put him all-in, which he called with his kings. The turn gave him a set, then an ace came on the river, so if he’d had ace-king like I put him on, I would have been dead anyway. Never got above starting stack on the rebuy.
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!
