Eight Deuce · Tournament #43

Six Hours, a Record Pool, and Warren Mervin Wins the Biggest Prize the League Has Paid

Jeff Ferguson reaches the final two again — sixty-two tournaments now without a win.

Seventeen players and six rebuys made $1,360, a record pool two months after the last one, and the tournament they played ran five hours and fifty-four minutes — twenty minutes longer than anything the league had staged before. Warren Mervin rebought, made three knockouts and won $535, the largest first prize a Friday tournament has ever paid.

It is his third Eight Deuce win and the fourteenth of his career, and it comes five months after he took the Player of the Year.

The end came fast: three minutes and seventeen seconds heads-up against Jeff Ferguson, who had rebought too and who took $345. Ferguson has now been in the final two of three tournaments — a Friday night in 2021, the 2022 Annual and this — and has never won one. Counting Canterberry and Eight Deuce he has played sixty-two.

Lance Cain was third for $300 and Steve McLean fourth for $180, having made five knockouts, more than anyone at the table.

Where the money went

The undercard

Mike Conner bubbled in fifth. Sean Denny played his first Eight Deuce tournament, rebought, and was the first player out.

Rick Mazza, who made eight knockouts last month, went sixteenth this time.

The bigger picture

Three tournaments into 2025 and the league has already put up $3,840 — more than any previous season managed in its first three tournaments. Sixteen rebuys have gone in across three nights.

Three tournaments, three different winners, and the standings are almost unreadably tight: Lee Ugarte leads David Doole by two hundredths of a point, and eight players sit inside fifty.

Eight Deuce #43 — Friday, March 14, 2025. 17 entrants, 6 rebuys, four paid from a $1,360 prize pool. Player of the Year counts each player’s best eight scores.