Eight Deuce · Tournament #51
Twenty Players, and Joe Johnson Wins in the Second One He Has Ever Played
The biggest field the league has drawn, and a three-way deal at the end of it.
Twenty players sat down for the first Friday of 2026, more than any Eight Deuce tournament has ever had, and five rebuys made $1,380. After four and a half hours the last three agreed to split the money on chip counts rather than play it out. Joe Johnson had the chips, and takes the win.
It is the second Eight Deuce tournament he has played. He is not a newcomer: he has seventeen Canterberry tournaments behind him and three Annuals — 2008, 2009 and 2016, a haul only Josh Reel matches. He simply had never played a Friday night here until October, when he finished fourth on debut.
He made five knockouts, more than anyone, and took $440.
The deal is why the top three prizes sit so close together. Andrew Shier took $410, thirty dollars off the win and the nearest he has come to one in this league; he won the Canterberry League Championship in 2017-18. Justin Vaughn took $340 for third with three knockouts, and Josh Reel completed the money in fourth for $190.
Where the money went
| Player | Prize | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Johnson | $440 |
| 2 | Andrew Shier | $410 |
| 3 | Justin Vaughn | $340 |
| 4 | Josh Reel | $190 |
The undercard
David Doole bubbled in fifth. Mike Conner and Rick Mazza made three knockouts apiece and finished sixth and tenth.
Josh Maida was the first player out after an hour and forty minutes, in his second Eight Deuce tournament.
The bigger picture
Twenty entries beats the previous record field of eighteen, which the league had reached four times in five years and never passed. The pool of $1,380 is the biggest it has assembled, twenty dollars past the $1,360 of March 2025.
The season runs to ten tournaments and the Player of the Year counts a player’s best eight scores. Joe Johnson starts on 125.00, the highest score anybody has posted in a single tournament, because points scale with the size of the field.
| Player of the Year — after #51 | Points | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Johnson | 125.00 |
| 2 | Andrew Shier | 83.33 |
| 3 | Justin Vaughn | 62.50 |
| 4 | Josh Reel | 50.00 |
| 5 | Mike Conner | 35.71 |
| 6 | David Doole | 33.33 |
| 7 | Warren Mervin | 31.25 |
| 8 | Angela Cain | 27.78 |
Eight Deuce #51 — Friday, January 9, 2026. 20 entrants, 5 rebuys, four paid from a $1,380 prize pool. The tournament ended in a three-way deal on chip counts; Joe Johnson finished first. First tournament of the 2026 season; Player of the Year counts each player’s best eight scores.