Canterberry Poker League · The 2018-19 Season
Dale Ellicott Won the First Tournament He Played, Then the League
Nobody has taken the title in their first season since 2008-09, when the whole field was new.
On the opening night of the season Dale Ellicott sat down for the first Canterberry Poker League tournament he had ever entered and won it. Ten months later he is the League Champion on 118 points — and no champion since the league’s first year has done it in a debut season.
How it went
Twenty players turned out in June, four of them new. Dale was one of the four; Warren Mervin knocked out six and finished second to him. It set a pattern that ran all year: the man with the most knockouts failed to win five of the ten tournaments.
Charlie Drotar won July after sixty-three months — the second-longest wait between two wins this league has recorded, behind only Mike Conner’s ten years. In the interval Charlie had played thirty-one tournaments, cashed in fifteen and led a season’s standings for most of a winter.
Rick Mazza took August for his seventh, and Josh Martin September — on a night when Mike Conner knocked out seven of nineteen and finished second.
Dale won again in October, in his fourth tournament, which made him the season’s first repeat winner. In November Juan Lopez knocked out seven in the fifth league tournament he had ever played and lost to Josh Martin.
Greg Howell won January and David Doole February, out of twenty-three players — the second-biggest field the league has seated. Josh Reel won March for his eleventh, which put him level with Eric Denny and Warren at the top of the all-time list for the fourth time in five years. Steve McLean closed the season with his fourth.
The season, tournament by tournament
| Date | Field | Winner | First prize | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #101 | Jun 15 | 20 | Dale Ellicott | $145 |
| #102 | Jul 13 | 16 | Charlie Drotar | $120 |
| #103 | Aug 10 | 19 | Rick Mazza | $135 |
| #104 | Sep 14 | 20 | Josh Martin | $155 |
| #105 | Oct 12 | 20 | Dale Ellicott | $140 |
| #106 | Nov 9 | 22 | Josh Martin | $160 |
| #107 | Jan 11 | 21 | Greg Howell | $160 |
| #108 | Feb 8 | 23 | David Doole | $160 |
| #109 | Mar 8 | 21 | Josh Reel | $155 |
| #110 | Apr 19 | 19 | Steve McLean | $145 |
League Champion
Dale Ellicott takes the title and the trophy on 118 points from nine starts. His five counting scores were two wins, a third, a fifth and a seventh; the four the cap threw away were two fourteenths, an eleventh and a last place.
That last place was March, when he was the first player out of twenty-one and did not lose the lead, because under the five-score rule the night could not touch him. He led the standings from November to the end.
Rick Mazza was second on 113 from all ten and Jeff Reichwein third on 107 from eight. Jeff Ferguson finished sixth on 98 having reached three finals and lost all three — twenty-seven tournaments now without a win.
| League standings — final, 2018-19 | Points | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dale Ellicott | 118 |
| 2 | Rick Mazza | 113 |
| 3 | Jeff Reichwein | 107 |
| 4 | Andrew Shier | 104 |
| 5 | Steve McLean | 99 |
| 6 | Jeff Ferguson | 98 |
| 7 | Charlie Drotar | 89 |
| 8 | Juan Lopez | 89 |
| 9 | Warren Mervin | 88 |
| 10 | Josh Martin | 87 |
The Annual
Three weeks after the finale, twenty-one players sat down for the 13th Annual Denny Poker Tournament and Greg Howell knocked out eight of them — equalling the most anybody has managed there — for $1,040, the largest first prize this event has paid.
Brig Coupe was second for $580, his third consecutive appearance in the Annual’s final two. Charlie Drotar took third, Rick Mickaliger fourth and Duane Barone fifth. Dale came sixteenth.
The verdict
Thirty-two players took a seat this season, as many as the league has ever had, and the fields reflected it: seven of the ten drew twenty or more, and February’s twenty-three is the second-largest ever held.
The knockouts were where the season kept going strange. Five times the man who cleared the most players out of the room went home without the trophy — Warren Mervin with six in June, Mike Conner with seven in September, Juan Lopez with seven in November, Lance Cain with six in January, Andrew Shier with five in March. Three of them finished second; Lance Cain came fourth and Andrew Shier third.
2018-19 Canterberry Poker League — ten tournaments from June 15, 2018 to April 19, 2019. 32 players took a seat during the season. League standings count each player’s best five scores.