Canterberry Poker League · The 2014-15 Season

The Season the Records Went

Eleven knockouts in a night, the first two-time League Champion, and a man who won the league and the Annual four weeks apart.

Ten tournaments, eight different winners, and three marks that had stood for years all moved. Josh Reel is the 2014-15 League Champion on 209 points — the first man to win this league twice.

How it went

Josh opened the season by winning it, which took him to eight career wins and broke the three-way tie he had helped create in April. Nothing about the scoring looked familiar: the win paid 50 points where a win the previous season had been worth between fourteen and twenty-two, and the prize pool took $15 a head instead of $20.

David Doole won July out of nineteen players, the biggest field in two years. Scott Dishong took August with two knockouts while Josh Reel made five and finished second, then took November as well — three appearances, two wins and a runner-up, and a debutant named Patrick Mckim in the seat across from him at the end of the second one.

Warren Mervin won September to draw level with Josh on eight, and Duane Barone won October for his first in forty-four months, knocking out precisely the three players who finished behind him.

Then January. Steve Drown had played thirteen league tournaments since 2009, never finished better than seventh, never cashed, and made four knockouts in six years. He knocked out eleven of the nineteen who had to go — three more than anyone had ever managed — and won it. Twenty players had turned up, matching the largest field the league has held. Five weeks later he was the first man out.

Eric Denny won February to put the same three men level at the top for the second time in a year. Clay Yawn won March in the fourth tournament he had ever played. And Warren closed the season with his ninth, which finally gave one man the all-time lead on his own.

The season, tournament by tournament

League Champion

Josh Reel takes the title and the trophy on 209 points from nine tournaments — a win, two second places, a third and four cashes in all. He won this league in 2012-13 as well, which makes him the first man to take it twice in the seven seasons it has run.

Eric Denny was second on 184 from all ten and Steve McLean third on 178 from eight, a season in which Mac reached the final two twice, cashed on both, and won neither. Warren Mervin won two tournaments and finished ninth: he entered five times all year.

The Annual

Four weeks after the finale, sixteen players sat down for the 9th Annual Denny Poker Tournament and Josh won that as well — seven hours and forty-two minutes, six knockouts, $275 and the trophy. Nobody had ever taken the league and the Annual in the same year. In the five previous Annuals a newly crowned champion had entered, the champion cashed once between them.

Paul Coffman was second for $170, four months on from a league runner-up that was the first cash of his career. Kelly Kruegel took third, Erik Treiber fourth and Clay Yawn fifth.

The verdict

This season handed out its best nights to people who had no history of them. Steve Drown broke a knockout record three players had shared and finished the season outside the top ten. Clay Yawn won in his fourth tournament. Patrick Mckim reached a final two in his first. Paul Coffman and Dave Grewe collected their first career cashes in the same tournament, on the night the record fell.

And the champion won once. Josh Reel took a single tournament in nine attempts, never missed more than one month in a row, and finished twenty-five points clear — then went and won the Annual to answer the one question the trophy had never settled.

2014-15 Canterberry Poker League — ten tournaments from June 13, 2014 to April 10, 2015. 29 players took a seat during the season. League standings count each player’s best eight scores.