Canterberry Poker League · Tournament #120

The Last One, and the Biggest

Twelve seasons, 120 tournaments, seventy-six players. It ended with the largest field the league ever seated and the largest prize it ever paid.

The Canterberry Poker League began on 21 June 2008 with six players around a table. It finished on Friday with twenty-five, the largest field it ever seated, and Mike McEvoy knocked out six of them to win $288 — the biggest prize in the league’s history, out of a $720 pool that is also its biggest.

It is his second league win. The first came in August 2017, in his thirty-fifth tournament, after four second places and four thirds; this is his forty-sixth, and it is the last tournament this league will play.

Steve McLean was second for $166, losing a thirteen-minute heads-up match — his second consecutive runner-up finish, three weeks after the fifty-two-minute one that set the record.

Paul Coffman took third and $122 with four knockouts, Josh Reel fourth and $94 without one, and Dale Ellicott completed the money in fifth for $50 with three.

Where the money went

The undercard

Mike Conner, who won tournament #1 and tournament #100, bubbled in sixth in #120. Rick Mazza was the first player out after an hour and thirteen minutes, knocked out by Jeff Reichwein, who made three and finished tenth.

Eric Denny came ninth, which was enough.

League Champion

Eric Denny is the 2019-20 League Champion and takes the trophy on 142 points from all ten tournaments. He won October and November back to back — the second time in his career he has done that — and March as well; nobody else won more than one all season.

Jeff Reichwein was second on 121 from all ten. He cashed five times, led the standings from August to March, and did not win a tournament. Paul Coffman was third on 114.

Twelve seasons

One hundred and twenty tournaments, twelve seasons, seventy-six players through the door. The league leaves behind a record book with one name at the top of most of it.

Eric Denny finishes as the all-time leader in wins with fourteen, three clear of Josh Reel and Warren Mervin, and in prize money with $2,775. He sat down for all 120 of them, which is what comes of hosting every one.

Nine men held the League Championship across the twelve seasons. Josh Reel and David Doole won it twice; Eric has now won it twice as well, ten years apart.

Canterberry Poker League #120 — Friday, April 17, 2020. 25 entrants, five paid from a $720 prize pool. The final tournament of the 2019-20 season and of the league, which ran 120 tournaments from June 2008 to April 2020.