2021 WSOP Schedule Released
The big news of the past two weeks is, of course, the announcement of the 2021 World Series of Poker Schedule last Monday. I had my room reservation at the Rio and flights scheduled by 11am that morning, after listening to Kevmath and the folks on the Rec Poker podcast as they went through it just after it hit the internet. I’m not going to bore you with my thoughts on the schedule—there are plenty of people far more knowledgable than myself ready to do that—but my own plans (depending on how things work out) include the 2-day Event #24 $600 PLO 8-Max Deepstack on October 12th, Event #27 $1,500 HORSE (3 days, October 13th), and Event #28 $1,000 PLO 8-Max (also 3 days, October 14th), along with however many satellites I can fit in before that Saturday night (hopefully not too many).
Still haven’t played a live game anywhere, though everyone is ramping up. The Game ran a $400 buy-in tournament this weekend scheduled for June 26. Portland Meadows has a $120 freezeout at noon every Saturday and a $100 freezeout on Sundays. And Final Table announced a competition Friday to give points to frequent players that comp them into a tournament where they play for a seat at the WSOP.
Podcast Frenzy
I mentioned the other day (ad nauseum) that I was on the Poker in the Ears podcast with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton. If you’re in a PokerStars real-money market, they give you a $109 ticket for the Sunday Millions tournament, but if you’re a victim of Black Friday or some other government regulatory shenanigans, they send you a consolation prize of some PokerStars merchandise. I unbagged my winnings this week.
I even made it into the last episode of the season, after I posted a tweet with some antique James Bond merch to Hartigan, an aficionado of all things Bond.
Since I started walking into work again a couple of weeks ago, my podcast listening time has gone back up, and at the end of last month I was listening to an interview of 2019 WSOP Player of the Year Rob Campbell on an episode of The Lock-In podcast, and he mentioned that he’d been doing a show called Podker. Co-hosted by $1/$3 cash game player and radio personality Angus O’Loughlin, it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve heard, as two guys with very Australian accents talk hand histories and interview people like Daniel Negreanu and Dan Zack and Daniel “Jungleman” Cates. Really, all the Dans. There are just a couple of seasons of 10 episodes so far, go back to the first one (November 2019) and trace the journey.
Kevmath’s Quarterly Year in Review
Thee months ago at the suggestion of Kevin Mathers, I ran the first year-over year ranking for the Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard, and it’s time for the second edition already! Players are listed in order by their recorded tournament earnings between mid-June 2020 and mid-June 2021. The numeric values are their Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard ranks at the beginning and the end of the year-long period,
| June 2020 Rank | June 2021 rank | state | player |
|---|---|---|---|
| 782 | 32 |  | Christopher Brewer |
| 1 | 1 | | Seth Davies |
| 31 | 26 |  | Adam Hendrix |
| 25 | 23 | | Maxwell Young |
| 430 | 143 |  | Vanessa Kade |
| 396 | 173 |  | Adam Walton |
| 14 | 13 | | Dylan Wilkerson |
| 1309 | 411 | | Brian Meadows |
| 10 | 7 |  | Dylan Linde |
| 390 | 233 | | Wayne Harmon |
| 766 | 417 | | Aaron Thivyanathan |
| 71 | 63 | | Chad Wassmuth |
| 26 | 27 | | Esther Taylor-Brady |
| 39 | 38 | | Kao Saechao |
| 1197 | 575 | | Brian Swanson |
| 1507 | 653 | | Glenn Thompson |
| 5676 | 1105 | | Brett Polen |
| 154 | 133 | | Dien Le |
| 228 | 198 | | Daniel Park |
| 473 | 358 | | Reginald Caymol |
Vanessa Kade is the big newcomer to this list, with a cash (see below) in live tournaments after her massive online win in the Sunday Millions 15th Anniversary earlier this spring. A few folks fell off the list as cashes between March and June of last year dropped away.
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
Nobody was new to the Leaderboard this semi-month.
Let’s start out with Aaron Thivyanathan from Renton, who came 4th (of 202) in WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa #5 NLHE for his second-biggest score. Thivyanathan goes from #464 to #417 (that is since the last Leaderboard, the numbers in the table above are between last June and now).
Dien Le from Bellevue placed 7th of 398 in Seminole Hard Rock Deep Stack Poker Series #5 $200K GTD NLHE. Le climbs eight spots to #133.
Tony Hoang of Edmonton placed 8th in a Wynn Summer Classic $250K GTD NLHE held 7—10 June (why can’t the Wynn number their tournaments like normal people?) 1,350 entrants made for a prize pool of over $700K. Hoang moves from #431 to #386.
There were 2,790 entries in the MSPT/Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series #41 $1.5M GTD NLHE, pushing the prize pool to nearly $2.7M. 20th place was Filmon Ghebreegzabheir from Issaquah. Moving nearly 100 places up the Leaderboard, Ghebreegzabheir is now #514. Adam Walton of Seattle came in 11th in the same event, and rises to #173.
Out of Sherwood Park, Alberta, YePing Shan won the Venetian #50 $100K GTD NLHE MonsterStack. It’s Shan’s largest recorded cash, and takes him up to #520 on the Leaderboard.
Christopher Brewer continues a journey through the high roller circuit, with a 7th place in the US PokerOpen/PokerGO #11 NLHE at the Aria/PokerGO studio. There were 69 entries. Brewer sticks at #32.
Adam Hendrix was the runner-up in USPO #5 NLHE with 85 runners. A good score, but not enough to move up from #26.
Down Under, Canadian Michael Maddocks had a good couple of weeks. First, there was a 3rd place cash in a field of nearly 500 in the WPTDeepStacks Gold Coast #1 NLHE. Always a good way to start the series. Then, a week later, runner up in a field of 1,113, in WPTDS Gold Coast #6 NLHE, for his biggest score to date. And a couple of weeks after that it’s another 3rd place (out of 108) in the Australian Poker League Poker Tour NLHE Jackstar Super High Roller. Maddocks jumps nearly 500 places on the Leaderboard, to #224.
We’ll wrap up this edition of the Leaderboard with the afore-mentioned Vanessa Kade, who rises almost 300 places to #143 with her jump into IRL high-roller poker. After her Sunday Millions, she popped into the US Poker Open. Kade came in 4th of 99 in USPO #9 NLHE, then 5th just a couple of days later in USPO #11 NLHE.
That’s it for now! Happy belated Juneteenth and have a great Father’s Day (you know who you are!)