Eight Deuce · Tournament #10

Steve McLean Wins the Finale, Jeff Holderman Wins the Season

An eighth different winner in ten tournaments — and the Player of the Year finished tenth on the night.

The season closed with the longest tournament it had produced — five hours and twelve minutes — and the biggest pool it could match: fourteen entries and five rebuys made $1,080. Steve McLean took $460 of it, his first win in the new league and the fifth of his career.

Mac made five knockouts and needed thirty-three minutes heads-up to finish off Shawn Miller, who had made six and who now owns two runner-up finishes, a third and a fifth from ten tournaments here. Add his twelve at Canterberry and Shawn has played twenty-one without winning one. He earned $280 for the near miss.

Josh Reel was third for $190 and Eric Denny fourth for $150. Between them they needed a great deal more than that.

Where the money went

The title

Jeff Holderman came in leading by forty-eight points and needing his two pursuers not to win. Neither did. He then went out tenth himself, which under a format that counts a player’s best eight scores still added something — and finished the season on 351.89 as the first Player of the Year in Eight Deuce history.

He won one tournament all year, in February, on the first night he ever played here. What carried him was everything else: four second-place finishes and a third, top-three in each of his first five starts. Josh Reel closed to 320.28 and Eric Denny to 309.29, and neither ever led.

The undercard

Juan Lopez bubbled in fifth. Angela Cain came sixth, one place ahead of her husband Lance Cain.

Rick Mazza was the first player out for the second tournament running, after an hour and twenty-eight minutes — an odd way to finish a year in which he won two.

The bigger picture

Ten tournaments, eight different winners. Only Rick Mazza and Eric Denny won twice, and Eric’s two came back to back in July and August, the only time all season anybody repeated.

The league it replaced took twelve years to pay a winner $288. This one paid $460 twice in its first ten nights, put four figures on the table twice, and never dropped below $800.

Eight Deuce #10 — Friday, October 8, 2021. 14 entrants, 5 rebuys, four paid from a $1,080 prize pool. Final tournament of the 2021 season; Player of the Year counts each player’s best eight scores. The Annual follows on November 6 and the Tournament of Champions on December 3.