Canterberry Poker League · Tournament #111

Lee Ugarte Opens the Season, and the Money Gets Bigger

The buy-in is $40 now, and the opener paid $235 to the winner — more than any league tournament ever has.

Twenty-one players opened the 2019-20 season and Lee Ugarte knocked out six of the twenty who had to go, winning his eighth Canterberry Poker League tournament in four hours and forty-three minutes. It paid $235.

That is the largest first prize this league has handed out. The buy-in has risen to $40 from the $30 of the last two seasons and the $25 it was for the nine before those, and the pool went with it: $585 from twenty-one players, where the same field a year ago would have made about $400.

Andrew Shier was second for $145 with three knockouts, losing an eleven-minute heads-up match. Josh Reel took third and $95, three months after his eleventh win.

Paul Coffman was fourth for $65 without a knockout and Jeff Reichwein completed the money in fifth for $45.

Where the money went

The undercard

Brig Coupe bubbled in sixth with three knockouts. Eric Denny finished ninth having made four — more than anyone outside the top two — and his four were the men who finished sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and twentieth.

Rick Mazza was the first player out after thirty minutes and thirty-five seconds, the fifth-quickest exit this league has seen.

The bigger picture

The standings rule has changed as well. This season counts each player’s best six scores rather than the best five, which has been the rule for the last four years. Six of ten is a slightly higher bar for anybody planning to win the thing on a short card — and two of the last four champions took the title from eight tournaments or fewer.

Lee Ugarte leads on 31 points. His eighth win moves him clear of David Doole and Rick Mazza, who have seven apiece, and into fourth on the all-time list, behind the three men tied on eleven.

Canterberry Poker League #111 — Friday, June 14, 2019. 21 entrants, five paid from a $585 prize pool. First tournament of the 2019-20 season; standings count each player’s best six scores.