Canterberry Poker League · Tournament #17

Three From Four for Eric

A debutant took out five and lost heads-up; the man who beat him has now won three of the last four.

The league came back from its December break with eighteen players, the biggest field of the season. Eric Denny won it with two knockouts, four and a half hours in the chair and a fourteen-and-a-half-minute heads-up match. It pays $160, the biggest first prize of the season.

Three wins from his last four starts, for a man who had none at all before September.

The man he beat had never played this league before Friday. Rick Mickaliger made five knockouts on debut — more than anybody in the room — and took $90 for second. Tom Buzbee was third for $50 with four of his own, so between the runner-up and the third-place finisher went nine of the seventeen eliminations.

Mike Short took fourth and $35, his second cash of the season, and Mike Conner completed the money in fifth for $25 — his first money finish since the opening months of the league’s first season.

Where the money went

The undercard

Rick Mazza and Charlie Drotar shared sixth, one place off the money. Lee Ugarte finished ninth with two knockouts, the most by anybody outside the top five. David Doole was the first man out after two hours and thirty-three minutes, which in an eighteen-man field is no disgrace at all.

The bigger picture

Seven tournaments, four different winners, and the leader is pulling clear. Eric is on 88 points, seventeen ahead of Mazza, who held an eighteen-point lead of his own back in August and has watched it go the other way since.

Three nights left. He has won three of the last four and been outside the top nine only once all season.

Canterberry Poker League #17 — Friday, January 15, 2010. 18 entrants, five paid from a $360 prize pool. Points shown are the league standings after seven tournaments of the 2009-10 season.