Eight Deuce · Tournament #1

A New League, and Rick Mazza Wins the First Night of It

Fourteen players, $800 on the table, and a first prize bigger than any the old league ever paid.

The Canterberry Poker League closed last April after twelve seasons and a hundred and twenty tournaments. Nine months later, fourteen players sat down for the first tournament of a new one — Eight Deuce — and Rick Mazza won it, knocking out six of the thirteen in four hours and fifty-four minutes.

It paid $345. No Canterberry tournament ever paid a winner more than $288, and none ever put more than $720 on the table; this one put up $800 in entry fees, and every dollar of it went back out.

Mazza arrives in good order. He won the Annual last June at his fourteenth attempt, and this is his eighth win across the two leagues.

Steve McLean was second for $205 after a thirty-three-minute heads-up match. Josh Reel took third and $140, and Lee Ugarte completed the money in fourth for $110 without making a knockout.

Where the money went

The undercard

Justin Vaughn bubbled in fifth. Mike Conner, who won the first Canterberry tournament in 2008 and the hundredth in 2018, was the first player out of the first Eight Deuce one, after an hour and fifty minutes — put there by Lance Cain, who finished eighth.

Angela Cain came tenth, two places behind her husband.

The bigger picture

The season title is the Player of the Year, and it goes on a player’s best eight scores from the ten tournaments. The scoring is nothing like the old league’s: Rick Mazza takes 70.00 points for the win, second is worth 46.67, and the numbers run down in fractions from there.

Every one of the fourteen who sat down on Friday had played Canterberry too. The four who cashed hold thirty wins from the old league between them.

Eight Deuce #1 — Friday, January 22, 2021. 14 entrants, four paid from an $800 prize pool. First tournament of the 2021 season; Player of the Year counts each player’s best eight scores.