Eight Deuce · Tournament #18

Ten Players Show Up and Lee Ugarte Beats Half of Them Himself

The smallest field the league has had, and its third win in five tournaments for the same man.

August thinned the room out. Ten players turned up, the fewest the league has ever had, and one rebuy made a $600 pool — a quarter below anything before it. Lee Ugarte knocked out five of them and won $240.

That is three wins in five tournaments and four here altogether, the twelfth of his career. He has beaten a sixteen-player field, a fifteen-player field and now a ten-player field since April, and nobody else this season has won more than one.

Paul Coffman was second for $170 after a fourteen-minute heads-up match, Justin Vaughn third for $110, and Warren Mervin fourth for $80 — his first cash of the season.

Where the money went

The undercard

Juan Lopez bubbled in fifth in a field where four of ten were paid. Lance Cain, who won last month, went eighth — one of Lee’s five, as were the men who finished second, third, fourth and seventh.

Eric Denny was the first player out after eighty-five minutes.

The bigger picture

Eight tournaments, six winners, and one of them has three. Lee Ugarte is on 372.01, seventy-eight ahead of Paul Coffman, with two tournaments to play and every one of his eight scores now counting toward a total that drops nothing.

The other number worth watching is the field. Every tournament from February to July drew between fourteen and eighteen players; ten came in August. Two tournaments remain in the season.

Eight Deuce #18 — Friday, August 12, 2022. 10 entrants, 1 rebuy, four paid from a $600 prize pool. Player of the Year counts each player’s best eight scores.