PNW Poker Leaderboard — 5 June 2021

Six Months to 60

When I started this blog, I’d just turned 49. I’d been playing live Hold’em for a little over two years. Tomorrow, I’ll be six months away from turning 60. So there’s that.

Five years ago, I was 3 days into my run as a live reporter at the WSOP.

Poker In the Ears

As previously mentioned, I was the Superfan contestant in the “Superfan vs. Stapes” segment on the official PokerStars podcast last week. This is the only exposure my card protectors have gotten in over a year!

Portland Poker

The Portland Meadows and Final Table poker rooms are (as of this writing) operating at 50% capacity, per county COVID restrictions, so things are moving in the right direction. There are a number of other venues in the Portland-area running shootouts and some tournaments. They include:

  • 45th Street Pub & Grill
  • The Game
  • Kit Kat Poker Club
  • Last Frontier
  • Stadiums Sports Bar

If you’ve got some other places that accept walk-ins drop me a line on Twitter @pokermutant.

Not-Portland NW Poker

Around the region, it seems to be mostly card rooms picking up the slack, rather than the casinos. High Mountain Poker is back in Eugene, and the Ontario Poker Room at the far east of Oregon has been active. Lots of reports from Palace in the Seattle area. Mostly from @dave_has_aces. Renton’s Fortune Poker is running high hand announcements on the NW Poker Facebook group.

https://twitter.com/dave_has_aces/status/1400884567599312897?s=20

The poker rooms at Spirit Mountain and Tulalip closed before the pandemic. Wildhorse—which was one of the first large venues in the state closed by a coronavirus outbreak—still hasn’t re-opened their poker room. Ditto for Chinook Winds, though they have announced tentative dates for the Fall Coast Poker Classic in September.

The biggest guarantee on a tournament I’ve seen so far is at the Clearwater Poker Room in East Wenatchee: $10K GTD, which has apparently been running since April.

Keep an eye on PokerAtlas, but call ahead before you head out anywhere is my advice.

Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard

Justin Mevs of Seattle is the first of two new names we welcome onto the Leaderboard this time. Mevs won the 186-entry Venetian Deepstack Championship Poker Series #23 $25K GTD NLHE MonsterStack, as the result of a 5-way deal on 26 May. It’s Mevs’s 4th and largest recorded cash. Mevs debuts at #3961.

13th place in the Wynn/PokerGO Summer Classic $1M GTD NLHE is Derek Hershman‘s first recorded cash. The player from Spokane beat out 1,717 other players to make it into the top 1% of the field. He is #2667 on the Leaderboard.

Max Young returns to the Leaderboard round-up with a 5th at the Prime Social Summer Series #10 $300K GTD NL H-Town (no idea what that means). 959 entries at the Houston (presumably H-Town) event. Found some info:

Open at Noon or 5pm for your share of triple-figures in the $300,000 Guaranteed $600 H-Town Special. Everything Houston-related is represented in this event, and you have you door fee wiped out if you show in ANY H-Town-related gear all weekend long.

Players open with a special H-Town 31,260 stack, playing 34-minute Day 1 levels. Registration and a single re-entry-per-player-per-flight period is open for 3 hours, 30 minutes for each flight in tomorrow’s 2 flights, Friday’s 2 flights (Noon and 5pm) and Saturday’s 2 flights (Noon and 5pm as well).

Check out the structure sheet to see all that Hammer has added that references H-Town, and don’t forget to yell “He Gone” when someone busts.

Max stays at #24.

Gold Beach’s Benjamin Garrick moves from #3087 to #1549 with a win in the Venetian #35 $50K GTD NLHE MonsterStack on 31 May. He beat 350 other entries in a 2-way chop for his 5th and biggest win.

Dylan Wilkerson came 7th in the Venetian #24 $250K GTD NLHE UltimateStack. The event had 867 total entries. Wilkerson had a win 10 days earlier in the Venetian #16 $150K GTD NLHE UltimateStack, with 739 entries. He holds at #13.

I’d be remiss if I did not mention Chris Brewer‘s win in the partypoker/WPT Online #5 $1M GTD NLHE High Roller, even though the results are not counted in the Hendon Mob leaderboard stats (though they are now recorded as part of the player’s tournament results). Not to worry, though, because he came in 3rd in the 65-entry Venetian/PokerGO #28 NLHE High Roller on 28 May, and turned around the next day to place 5th in the 43-entry Venetian/PokerGO #31 NLHE High Roller. Good thing, too, because apparently his bag full of chips was stolen from the food court there during the tournament. According to Daniel Negreanu on his DAT Poker Podcast, both Brewer’s bag and one belonging to Ali Imsirovic were taken. Just a reminder to keep your belongings close! Or don’t win anything, so you don’t have anything to lose!

Despite losing his bag, Brewer moves up two slots to #32 on the leaderboard. He passes Carter Gill (now #34) and DAT Poker co-host Terence Chan (#33). He’s sitting right behind Ian Johns (#31).