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).

But I’m back got a year-end wrap-up and what has got to be the most time-consuming Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard I’ve ever done.

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.

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:

1. Only new or updated players with $120K of earnings reported on Hendon Mob over the past year.
2. Only events with payouts of $10K or more; many of these players have other cashes through the year under $10,000.
3. 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.
4. 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.
  • The tournament prize pool in US dollars.

And that’s it! It took a long time! Hope you enjoyed it.