The Spring Poker Classic at Muckleshoot Casino overlapped the Spring Poker Round Up in Pendleton by a weekend (and the Main Event there is wrapping up as I write this), but Muckleshoot’s tournament staff got their results into The Hendon Mob just three days after the end of the series, and I feel like rewarding someone before I sit down to watch the first episode of Season 8 of Game of Thrones.
Let’s start of (as usual) with the new names on the list. Debuting at a respectable #764 is someone whose results were not from Muckleshoot: Washington’s Jeffrey Haney had his biggest- ever cash with a win at the AJPC KRW1.1M NLHE High Roller in Incheon, South Korea.
Barry Nelson (also Washington, #1193) won Event #2 NLHE at Muckleshoot. I could have sworn that was supposed to be an $80K GTD tournament but the prize pool shows only $43K, only two-thirds of the Friday tournament prize pool, which had a smaller buyin.
The third new name was also a winner: opening at #1888 is Auburn’s Jeffrey Lindsey with a win in Event #4 NLHE, the other $400 buyin tournament that did break $80K in the prize pool. It appears as if there may have been a 6-way chop.
Over in the mega-winners circle, Seth Davies maintains at #9 in the PNW by winning a Bellagio $10K NLHE High Roller (23 entries) then getting 3rd (of three paying places) in another Bellagio $10K NLHE High Roller just two days later (21 entries). The winner of the latter was former PNW Leaderboard fixture (now #1 on the Bosnia & Herzegovina leaderboard) Ali Imsirovic, who just won the Global Poker Award for Best Breakout Player of 2018.
Federal Way’s Daniel Park picked up two of his best-ever cashes just a month after a deep run in the WSOPC Rio Las Vegas Main Event with 13th place from a 982-entry field in the Wynn Classic $1M GTD NLHE Main Event, then 8th place at WSOPC Bally’s Las Vegas $500K GTD NLHE Main Event. Park moves up 43 places to #134.
Kindah Sakkal is racking them up this spring on the WSOPC. In the 94-entry WSOPC LA Event #2 NLHE, she took 3rd, them headed to Las Vegas to win her first Circuit ring in WSOPC Bally’s Las Vegas Event #4 NLHE Double Stack. She almost managed a twofer in WSOPC Bally’s Las Vegas Event #14 NLHE Turbo, getting heads-up for a second ring. Sakkal almost breaks into the Leaderboard’s double digits, moving from 112 to 101.
James Pennella from Kirkland (#148) was another deep runner in a Wynn Classic $1M GTD NLHE, placing 11th.
Clarke Straus from Seattle was the highest-placing PNW player in the Muckleshoot NLHE Main Event. The $750 buyin tournament took in 282 players; neither of the top two finishers was from the US Pacific Northwest. Straus is not #214.
Rep Porter is still in #7 on the Leaderboard after making it to 18th in a field of 734 at the first-ever WPT Venetian $1M GTD NLHE Main Event. The guarantee was more than doubled.
Darren Rabinowitz holds at #15 with his 30th place finish in the resurrected Bay 101 Shooting Star NLHE. 440 entries and a total prize pool of more than $2.15M.
Hailing from Spokane, Robbie Calhoun had only one recorded cash, from back in 2015. But he’s now a Circuit Ring winner, for WSOPC Bally’s Las Vegas Event #6 NLHE. Robbie jumps more than 1700 places, to #1173.
Another Circuit Ring was won at Bally’s by Newberg, Oregon’s Taylor Hart in Event #2 NLHE. He has a bit longer record of cashes. He moves up to #195.
Back at Muckleshoot, Jesse Harrison scored his biggest cash with 2nd place in Event #2, moving up to #1198. And Dustin An‘s 5th place finish in the Main Event gets him to #334. In case anyone’s keeping count, that’s three rings (out of 12) won by PNW players at the WSOPC Bally’s stop.
Finally, Rambo Halpern, after getting his first recorded cash in the Chinook Winds High Roller in February, got 17th in the WSOPC Bally’s Las Vegas NLHE Main Event for cash number two, jumping another 100 places to #455.