Stephen Bokor wins the 2013 Battle at the Beach, via PokerNews

Stephen Bokor 1988—2018

Max Young posted a notice on NW Poker Friday afternoon that Stephen Bokor had passed away. Bokor was an accomplished poker player who grew up in Knappa, Oregon, outside of Astoria, playing online before heading out on the live poker circuit for several years following Black Friday.

Bokor ran up a string of cashes before his big win at Pompano Beach in 2013. Even before then, he’d caught the eye of poker journalists, and he was profiled in the Global Poker Index’s The Chase shortly after his win. His short career as a live tournament player (his last recorded cash was winning the Fall 2016 Turbo at Wildhorse) currently has him in 18th place on the Oregon All-Time Money List, with more than $400,000 in recorded live tournament winnings.

Portland Meadows Goes Crypto

The first Friday in March, Portland Meadows Poker Room will host what owner Brian Sarchi says is the first live tournament poker event with buyins and payouts made in cryptocurrency.

Sponsored by Dash (Digital cASH), the promotional tournament is guaranteed to have a 20% overlay; Dash is contributing an extra Dash coin for every Dash coins contributed by players to the prize pool. Dash is providing an on-site cryptoATM for trading in Dash coins.

The tournament starts at 7pm on 2 March with 20-minute levels. Buyins are 0.1 Dash coin and payouts will be made in Dash coins. Dash was trading at $672 at 10pm Tuesday, but like a lot of crypto currencies, the price is volatile, and it was over $1,000 as recently as two weeks ago, so another month and who knows?

Details on how to get yourself set up with Dash—and how the buyin and payout process will work—should be forthcoming soon.

Meanwhile, congrats to Robert Brewer, who won Saturday’s Wild West Poker Series High Roller at Meadows. More on that in a bit.

Spring Poker Round Up Schedule Released

The next Wildhorse Spring Poker Round Up is just a couple months off, the new schedule is out, and there have been some big changes in the routine.

The High Roller tournament has been moved to the first weekend of the series, out of the mid-week doldrums.

HORSE  is back! It has a smaller buyin and it’s running on the first Sunday—at 7pm—which doesn’t seem to be very high expectations, but it is on the schedule, and it leads directly into Omaha Hi-Low on Monday and Big O on Tuesday, so mixed-game players can make the most of their time out east. That also means the end of the week after Wednesday’s Seniors tournament is straight Hold’em leading into the Main Event on Saturday. I can get behind that.

Last Week’s Poker Time

The final table of the Wild West High Roller was played out on the RFID table used by The Poker Guys to shoot their Poker Time show, and they’re also running Sit & Gos this week that should all be showing up on YouTube soon.

#PNWPokerLeaderboard

Idaho’s Dylan Linde played the Lucky Hearts Poker Open High Roller last week and took 5th place out of 75 players putting up $25.5K each.

This Week In Portland Poker

Friday is the First Friday of February (and Groundhog Day), so it’s time for a $20K at Final Table. This is also Super Bowl weekend, and Portland Meadows will be closed for the day (according to their web site). Final Table will be open, though you may want to check about guarantees on Sunday.

My Time Is Coming

I had a ticket to a Quarterfinal single-table-satellite to this weekend’s Ignition $250K GTD (the winner of the 6-Max table got a seat into the direct satellite). We started with 75bb, a player got knocked out on the first hand, I was cut down to 7bb on hand 6 when I ran into aces, I managed to battle back to 65bb and the chip lead with three players by hand 35, but I couldn’t close out the heads-up.

Wild West Poker Tour Event #3 $1,500 GTD NLHE Bounty

I played a bounty tournament and just got a couple of bounties, played my first live tournament in a couple of weeks at Portland Meadows on Friday night and just frittered my stack away. I didn’t see a pair over sizes in three hours—one of the guys at the other end of the table got aces on consecutive hands (see my PokerNews article “In and Out of the Luckbox”, or just play with the Starting Hand Distribution Simulator). Didn’t even make the break. I had to work and missed the 6-Max at noon, but it had just gotten into the money as the bounty tournament was starting up, with more than four times the guarantee in the prize pool.

I hadn’t though the Warp Speed to the Final Table tournament would have been very exciting, but the crew made a show of the all-in first hands on the RFID table, and people seemed to be having fun.

Wild West Poker Tour $50K GTD NLHE High Roller

Saturday, I lasted about five hours in the High Roller, doing what I thought was reasonably well until my table broke and I was moved to Table 1 which housed Brandon Cantu and the eventual champ (pictured above) Robert Brewer (btw, you can read my 2015 interview with Robert at PokerNews).

I missed the Survivor tournament on Sunday night because of a family thing, and that’s the  end of a very unproductive poker week.

Only a Day Away

• Los Angeles Poker Classic 25  at Commerce Casino finishes out its first month of events with HORSE tomorrow, Triple Triple Draw on Friday, and NL HORSE on Saturday. Early next week is Stud Hi-Low, Omaha mix (Big O, PLO8, and O8), and NL O8 on Tuesday, then a $300K GTD multi-entry tournament at the end of next week.
• At Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza  the Mid-States Poker Tour to present a $500K GTD tournament with $1,100 buyin Thursday and Friday. Saturday is a $100K GTD Bounty ($1,100 buyin). Next week is a $400 tournament with $100K GTD and on the weekend if a n 8-Max $800 tournament with $250K GTD.
• The annual Winter Super Stack is at Calgary’s Deerfoot Inn today. Thursday is the first of three C$550 Mega Stack entry days, and there’s a C$330 PLO Bounty on Saturday. No guarantees, but the opening event last year (same buyin) had a prize pool of $128K in US dollars, with the $1,500 buyin Main Event (starting 9 February) reaching US$250K.
• Alaska Airlines has seasonal direct flights from Portland to MIlwaukie, Wisconsin, but winter is apparently not the season. I’m going to throw WSOP Circuit Wisconsin into the mix anyway, since you can get there direct from Seattle and prices are reasonable (less than $500 RT). The Main Event for this stop has a $750K guarantee. Starts 1 February.
• 1 February is also the start of the US Poker Open at Aria in Las Vegas. The events have buyins of $10K to $50K, but there are supposedly side events in the mere three figures, according to Poker Atlas.
• Ontario Poker Room has a $115 buyin Deepstack on Saturday if you’re on the east side of Oregon.
• Heartland Poker Tour hits Colorado at Golden Gates again a week from today,
• 8 February is the first of three entry days (four flights) For the Love of Money in Minneapolis at Running Aces. $350 buyin.

Remember to keep an eye on the #PNWPokerCal Twitter hashtag and the PNW Poker Calendar for upcoming events!