The Annual · 12th Denny Poker Tournament

Brig Coupe Goes One Better

Second here last year for $710. First this year for $780, and the eighth different name on the trophy.

Twelve months ago Brig Coupe lost the longest heads-up match this tournament has played and took $710 for second. On Saturday he came back and won it — nine hours and seven minutes, four knockouts, $780 and the trophy.

He has now played two Annuals and finished first and second in them. His league career is not much longer: he first sat down in February last year and won a Canterberry Poker League tournament in his third.

The finish was quick by this tournament’s standards — four and a half minutes, against Eric Denny, who took $440 for second with three knockouts.

Mike Conner was third for $325, four weeks after winning the hundredth league tournament. Greg Howell took fourth and $260, and Andrew Shier completed the money in fifth for $145 — the newly crowned League Champion, cashing here a month after taking the title.

Where the money went

The undercard

Josh Martin bubbled in sixth. Warren Mervin made three knockouts and finished ninth. Mike McEvoy was the first player out and it still took three hours and five minutes.

Five rebuys went in, down from the fourteen of last year.

The bigger picture

Twelve Annuals, eight different winners. Joe Johnson has three, Josh Reel and Brian Albers two apiece, and five others have one each.

The prize pool settled back to $1,950 after the $2,865 of last year and the $2,520 of 2016 — still the third-largest this tournament has put up, and nearly double anything before 2016.

The newly crowned League Champion has now cashed here in three of the last four years, the exception being David Doole’s seventh place in 2017. In the five Annuals a champion entered before 2015, it happened once.

The 12th Annual Denny Poker Tournament — Saturday, May 12, 2018. 18 entrants, 5 rebuys, five paid from a $1,950 prize pool.