Canterberry Poker League · The 2008-09 Season
Ten Months, Eight Winners, One Champion
A league that began with six players round a single table finished with twenty-five through it, and the only man to win three times took the title.
Six players sat down in June 2008 for twenty dollars each. By January the field was eighteen. Ten tournaments later the Canterberry Poker League has its first champion: Warren Mervin, on 98 points, and the only man all season to win more than once.
How it went
The first six months refused to repeat a name. Mike Conner won the opening night and put out four of the five players who busted. Chris Johnson took July, Warren August, Rick Mazza September — four tournaments, four winners, all four of them at the top of the table.
Then the league started handing its nights to people who had never played it. Paul Denny won October on debut and beat another debutant, Tom Buzbee, heads-up to do it. Dave Short won November on debut and beat Josh Reel, also debuting, in the longest finish of the autumn. Four first-timers in the final two across two months.
December was skipped. The league came back in January half again as big — eighteen players, six more than any tournament before it — and that was the night the season turned. Warren won it for his second, went to the top of the standings and never left. Dan Myers took February, his first win here after seven months of nothing, and Warren won again in March to open a twelve-point lead with one night to play.
The finale went to Tom Buzbee, who put out six of the twelve and came through a heads-up match against his wife Dawn Buzbee — her first cash in the league, at the last possible opportunity. Warren finished tenth that night and it did not matter.
The season, tournament by tournament
| Date | Field | Winner | First prize | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Jun 21 | 6 | Mike Conner | $80 |
| #2 | Jul 12 | 10 | Chris Johnson | $90 |
| #3 | Aug 9 | 11 | Warren Mervin | $105 |
| #4 | Sep 13 | 8 | Rick Mazza | $80 |
| #5 | Oct 11 | 10 | Paul Denny | $90 |
| #6 | Nov 8 | 12 | Dave Short | $110 |
| #7 | Jan 16 | 18 | Warren Mervin | $150 |
| #8 | Feb 20 | 16 | Dan Myers | $135 |
| #9 | Mar 13 | 12 | Warren Mervin | $110 |
| #10 | Apr 17 | 13 | Tom Buzbee | $120 |
League Champion
Warren takes the title and the trophy on 98 points from nine appearances — three wins, five money finishes, and the only card in the league that reached the top of the table and stayed there.
Chris Johnson was second on 82 and got there the other way entirely: six cashes, more than anybody, and a single win back in July. He led or shared the lead after four of the ten tournaments, and from September on he was never lower than second. Mike Conner finished third on 77, having won the very first one and cashed three times in the opening four.
| League standings — final, 2008-09 | Points | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Warren Mervin | 98 |
| 2 | Chris Johnson | 82 |
| 3 | Mike Conner | 77 |
| 4 | Rick Mazza | 68 |
| 5 | Dan Myers | 62 |
| 6 | Eric Denny | 51 |
| 7 | Tom Buzbee | 44 |
| 8 | Josh Reel | 41 |
| 9 | Mike Short | 38 |
| 10 | Matt Moriarty | 38 |
The Annual
Three weeks after the finale came the 3rd Annual Denny Poker Tournament, and the league’s first season showed up in the numbers: sixteen players against the nine who came in each of the first two years, an $800 pool, five places paid and nearly nine hours of poker.
Joe Johnson won it for the second year running and $350, six knockouts to his name, beating Dan Myers heads-up. He is the first man to take that trophy twice. Warren came eleventh.
The verdict
Eight different winners from ten tournaments is about as open as a first season could have been, and two of the eight were playing their first night when they won. The buy-in never moved off twenty dollars; the fields tripled anyway.
And the number that frames the year: the champion won three tournaments, and nobody else won two.
2008-09 Canterberry Poker League — ten tournaments from June 21, 2008 to April 17, 2009. 25 players took a seat during the season. League standings are the sum of every score a player recorded.