Canterberry Poker League · Tournament #12

Five Knockouts, and Josh Wins Anyway

The man who emptied half the table finished second, and the longest heads-up match of the year decided it.

Ten players had to go out, and Tom Buzbee sent five of them home. He finished second. Josh Reel made two knockouts, sat for four and a half hours, and then took twenty-four minutes and seventeen seconds of heads-up play to finish it — the longest closing stretch this season. It pays $105, and it is his first Canterberry Poker League win.

Tom takes $60 for second, three months after winning the last season’s finale. Half the field went home at his hands and it was not enough.

Mike Short was third for $35, and the record gets stranger: five money finishes now, two of them runner-up, and still no win. Dawn Buzbee completed the money in fourth for $20 — her second cash, three months after the first.

Where the money went

The undercard

Mandy Denny bubbled in fifth with two knockouts, the most by anybody outside the money, and one of the two was her husband Eric Denny. Charlie Drotar played his first league tournament and finished sixth. Dan Myers was gone in forty-five minutes, the quickest exit this league has recorded.

The bigger picture

Two tournaments, two different winners, and the man on top of the standings is the one who has never won anything. Mike Short leads on 25 points off a second and a third — five money finishes now and no tournament to show for them, while every other man in the top five owns at least one.

Tom is second on a single appearance, and last season’s champion has played one of the two.

Canterberry Poker League #12 — Friday, July 17, 2009. 11 entrants, four paid from a $220 prize pool. Points shown are the league standings after two tournaments of the 2009-10 season.