Canterberry Poker League · The 2013-14 Season
Three Men Reached Seven, and None of Them Won the League
The last three tournaments of the year each crowned a new co-leader on the all-time list. Rick Mazza, who has five, took the trophy.
Ten tournaments produced eight different winners, and the season saved its best sequence for the end: Eric Denny won his seventh league tournament in February, Warren Mervin his seventh in March, and Josh Reel his seventh in April. Three men now share the all-time lead. Rick Mazza is the 2013-14 League Champion, and he has five.
How it went
Rick Mazza opened the season by knocking out seven of the ten players who had to go — everybody from eighth place to second. Three of the four paid places behind him went to Dawn Bjork, Lori Mazza and Mandy Denny, and Lori’s third was the first cash of her career in fourteen tournaments.
July belonged to a man nobody had seen before. Kenny Jones played his first league tournament, knocked out eight of the thirteen players in it — equalling the most anybody has managed in one night — and won. He then played the rest of the season without another win.
That night also produced a thirty-eight-minute heads-up match, the longest this league had ever played. It did not stay the longest for long: November went nearly as far, and October went past half an hour too. Three of the four longest finishes in league history all came in this one season.
Dawn took August for her fourth career win, in a tournament that ended with second place shared. Brian Albers then won September and November — the only two tournaments he entered before March — which made him the first man to win twice this season while everybody chasing him had played six.
Josh won October, David Doole January, and then the run at the record started. Eric won February from a nine-man field, the smallest since 2008, taking five of the eight knockouts after seven tournaments without a cash. Warren drew level a month later with six knockouts out of twelve. Josh made it three in the finale.
The season, tournament by tournament
| Date | Field | Winner | First prize | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #51 | Jun 14 | 11 | Rick Mazza | $110 |
| #52 | Jul 12 | 13 | Kenny Jones | $130 |
| #53 | Aug 9 | 14 | Dawn Bjork | $140 |
| #54 | Sep 13 | 15 | Brian Albers | $140 |
| #55 | Oct 11 | 11 | Josh Reel | $105 |
| #56 | Nov 8 | 18 | Brian Albers | $160 |
| #57 | Jan 10 | 17 | David Doole | $150 |
| #58 | Feb 14 | 9 | Eric Denny | $90 |
| #59 | Mar 14 | 13 | Warren Mervin | $125 |
| #60 | Apr 11 | 14 | Josh Reel | $135 |
League Champion
Rick Mazza takes the title and the trophy on 94 points from all ten tournaments — a win, three second places and a fourth, five cashes in total. It is his first League Championship in six seasons of trying, and it makes six different champions in the six seasons this league has run. Nobody has won it twice.
Dawn Bjork was second on 88, also from all ten, with five cashes of her own and the standings lead on two separate nights. Erik Treiber finished third on 71 from five appearances — half as many tournaments as the two above him, and he cashed in four of them.
Lori Mazza was fourth on 68. She had never cashed in a league tournament before this season and finished it with three third places and no wins, one spot above the man who won the 2011-12 title.
| League standings — final, 2013-14 | Points | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rick Mazza | 94 |
| 2 | Dawn Bjork | 88 |
| 3 | Erik Treiber | 71 |
| 4 | Lori Mazza | 68 |
| 5 | David Doole | 67 |
| 6 | Eric Denny | 65 |
| 7 | Lee Ugarte | 63 |
| 8 | Josh Reel | 62 |
| 9 | Mike Conner | 59 |
| 10 | Mandy Denny | 56 |
The Annual
Three weeks after the finale, nineteen players sat down for the 8th Annual Denny Poker Tournament and played for nine hours and forty-seven minutes — the longest this tournament has ever run. Lee Ugarte won it for $345 and the trophy at his sixth attempt, beating Charlie Drotar heads-up in thirteen minutes.
Mike Conner was third, Mandy Denny fourth and Eric Denny fifth — a married couple finishing one place apart with seven knockouts between them. David Doole completed the money in sixth without a knockout all day. Nobody rebought.
Rick Mazza came tenth of nineteen. That makes five Annuals since 2009 that a newly crowned champion has entered, and he has cashed at one of them.
The verdict
The headline number is seven, and three men own it. None of them is the champion. Rick Mazza won one tournament all year and turned up for all ten. Two of the last three championships have gone that way: not to whoever won the most, but to whoever kept showing up.
The other number is eight, and it belonged to a man who had never played here before. Kenny Jones arrived unknown in July, equalled the knockout record, won the tournament, played four more with one further cash in them, and finished the season sixteenth.
2013-14 Canterberry Poker League — ten tournaments from June 14, 2013 to April 11, 2014. 26 players took a seat during the season. League standings count each player’s best eight scores.