San Diego Syndicate

Back to back for Scotty D!! All that good karma he banks for helping set things up every tourney is starting to pay off! In second place was a new player, Kyle Sedlick. And in third was Matt “he can’t be that good” Burley. Oh, and everyone’s favorite Anthony – Anthony – came in 4th, followed by Mona in 5th.

Final Table:

1. Scott Dennis
2. Kyle S
3. Matt B(ullshit!)
4. Anthony!!
5. Mona
6. Cameron
7. Amy
8. Steve A
9. ???????????
10. ???????????
11. Kelsi
12. ???????????
13. John Thursby
14. ???????????
15. ???????????

Please players – we had a problem with the computer after this tournament and I asked everyone who played what their finish was. Some did not answer so I have incomplete results for this one. Help me out!!!

[remember we skipped Event 6 – that will be rescheduled sometime next year]

Congratulation to Scott Denis for taking down Event 7 of the season. This is Scott’s second win since joining us back in Season 13. Spork, who’s been kind of part-timing it for awhile now came in 2nd place, which was his best finish since Season 11, Event 9 (!) when he also earned a 2nd place. In 3rd place was Christopher followed by Matt “what, I didn’t win again” Burley in 4th. Wayne came in 5th to round out our money winners.

Final Table:

1. Scott Denis
2. Spork
3. Christopher
4. Matt B
5. Wayne
6. Ranjit
7. Anders
8. Joey
9. Paul H
10. Keithy

Link to the Season 16 Leaderboard, Results, Stake and Schedule

So Jacob came down from Menefee and showed the Syndicate who’s the boss!! Oh, and of course Matt “Ace-Ten” Burley got second place. Tom came in third, followed by Wendi and Don Bisco to round out our money winners.

Final table:

1. Jacob
2. Matt Burley
3. Tom
4. Wendi
5. Don B
6. Dave Readman
7. Mark S
8. Gary B
9. Kelsi
10. Bob W

Link to the Season 16 Leaderboard, Results, Stake and Schedule

So the good news for everyone else in the Syndicate is that Matt B didn’t win our first major of the Season. The bad news is that Ranjit won!! Congratulations to Ranjit on his third Syndicate win in just three seasons! In 2nd place was Gary B and David B came in 3rd place. Joy and Rene came in 4th and 5th respectively for their best finishes of the season.

Final Table:

1. Ranjit
2. Gary B
3. David Benj
4. Joy
5. Rene
6. Christopher
7. Rick
8. Matt B
9. Dave Rdmn
10. Paul H

Link to the Season 16 Leaderboard, Results, Stake and Schedule

Next up: we play a regular Deep Stack tourney THIS Saturday at 3pm.

• 

We have always tried to approximate the structures that the WSOP and this season they began including antes from the very start of each tournament. The above structure that we are adopting is very close to what the WSOP is now using. One thing to note is that while antes now begin immediately there are new levels like 200/300 and 300/500 that help keep the tourney deep early. You’ll also notice that 800/1600 is gone and replaced by 1000/1500. In general this structure gets lower denomination chips off the table quicker while still increasing the levels at a reasonable pace.

Unless some tourneys go very late (like majors/re-entries) we will have the same structure at all regular season events. The first 6 levels will be 30 minutes long, followed by dinner. This will also mark the end of the re-entry period for those events. Then levels 7 through 18 will be 25 minutes long. Levels 19 (which will be about midnight) and higher will be 20 minutes in length. If we reach the final level of 50,000/100,000 it will go until the tourney is over. As always, there is no ante heads up and the 3rd place finisher MUST stay to deal until the end.

After dinner, the other breaks each occur one level after a chip-denomination is no longer needed. That gives the table one level for someone to buy up the chips and then we’ll remove them at the end of that level. These breaks will be as short as possible.

This is also a good time to remind players that they can arrive late but must be seated before the start of level 10. Unlike in the WSOP though you do start with a blinded down stack.

• 

Congratulations to Mark for winning the third event of the season. This is Mark’s second Syndicate win. Right behind him were Matt with only his third top-2 finish in three events, and Kelsi with her second top-3 finish in a row! Wayne and Scott D came in 4th and 5th place for their best finishes of the season.

The Final Table:

1. Mark S
2. Mr. Burley
3. Mrs. Burley
4. Wayne
5. Scott D
6. Tom
7. Rene
8. Mona
9. Don B
10. Amy

Link to the Season 16 Leaderboard, Results, Stake and Schedule

Next Up: We play this Saturday, the 13th, at 3PM! This a MAJOR deep stack tourney.

We’ve had several hubby-wife players in the Syndicate but we’ve never had them go heads-up for the win before! No surprise though, considering the results of this week’s WSOP Monster Tournament, that the first 1-2 duo would be Matt & Kelsi! Congratulations to both of you on this tournament’s results and your finishes in Vegas.

In 3rd place was Mona, for her best Syndicate finish. In 4th place was Jimmy X in his Season 16 debut. And Keith came in 5th for his second solid finish in two events this season.

We’re now two events in the season and Matt already has a 1st and 2nd place finish. It looks like someone has his sights set on next summer’s Main Event already!! You can check the Results page for the updated leaderboard and all the results.

The Final Table

1. Matt B
2. Kelsi
3. Mona
4. Jimmy X
5. Keith
6. Joy
7. Joey
8. CraigL
9. Anders
10. Amy

NEXT UP: We play this Saturday at 3PM! This is a regular deep-stack tournament. You can check the schedule page for the full schedule.

Sorry for the back and forth on this – but we will be running all of our events at 3pm this season.

And we’re back!! After a 25 month gap between season-openers, the Syndicate is back for Season 16! I’ll have some more information later this week about the new season but for now let’s congratulate Steve Alkema for taking down the first event! This is Steve’s first victory since his first season with us back in season 9 (2013!). In second place was one of our leaderboard denizens, Matt Burley. Matt also started with us back in Season 9 and since then has played in the WSOP for us in six of his seven seasons, including two Main Events and four $1,500 tourneys. In 3rd place was newcomer Brian “Cashman” Passman in his first Syndicate event. Congratulation Brian!! Jon Towers came in 4th and Bob Cosway took 5th place to round out our money winners.

Final Table:

1. Steve A
2. Matt B
3. Brian P
4. Jon T
5. Bob C
6. Bob W
7. Ranjit
8. Joy
9. Don B
10. Mark S

Next up is a re-entry event on October 9th. Please note our new start time of 2pm for the rest of the season. The Evite is out so reply early if you can.

Also, I made an announcement last night that Joy is going to help us further by being the Syndicate treasurer. I’ll have the spreadsheet up for the finances later this week once Joy and I get everything organized. Thanks Joy!

Here is a link for the updated Leaderboard, Results, Stake and Schedule

With all the energy going into restarting Season 15, organizing the Tiki, and preparing for Season 16, I forgot to make a major announcement: last month Joy Jennings joined Chad Mothe’, Paul Hopkins, Keith Morgan, Gary Fessia and Matt Burley on the Syndicate Committee. Joy joined the Syndicate back in Season 9 and has been an active and involved player ever since. Welcome Joy and thank you for your great ideas, assistance and friendship these past seven years!!

THE COMMISIONER

• Jonkey

THE COMMITTEE

• Chad Mothe’
• Paul Hopkins
• Keith Morgan
• Gary Fesia
• Matt Burley
• Joy Jennings

TREASURER

• Joy Jennings

Check out the schedule page for the updated Season 16 schedule

After 16 tournaments, 2 playoffs and 25 months our WSOP team is ready!!

1. The winner of Season 15, Ranjit, has only played with us for two seasons but he is now two for two on winning Main Event seats. Last season he won the Main Event Bonus Tourney and this season he was the overall winner by 135 points! We spoke with him earlier today and he promised that he was going to go deeeeeeeeeep in his Main Event run this time!
2. Our runner up this season, Wendi, has had a Syndicate career that led right to this moment. Wendi joined us back in season 10 when she only played a few events and came in 62nd place. In season 11 she moved up to 32nd place and in season 12 she made the playoffs in 21st. She made the playoffs again in season 13 with a 16th place finish and in season 14 she earned a guaranteed seat with a 7th place finish. So every season she has moved up the leaderboard until this season when she became the first woman in Syndicate history to win a WSOP Main Event seat. Congratulations Wendi!!
3. Our third Main Event winner proved that all you have to do is make the playoffs to win a Main Event Seat! Jon Towers came from the playoff bracket and by winning a top-2 finish he earned a seat at our Bonus Main Event Final Table. Of course he won this tournament and will represent the Syndicate for the first time since joining our league back in season 8. Way to go Trouble!!

Our other winners:

4. David Benj – 3rd place, fifth Syndi seat w/ 2 Main Events (9 seasons)

5. Dana – 4th place, sixth Syndi seat with 2 Main Events (8 seasons)

6. Rowan – 5th place, second Syndi seat (3 seasons)

7. Matt B – 6th place, sixth Syndi seat with 2 Main Events (7 seasons)

8. Anthony – 7th place, first Syndi seat (8 seasons)

9. Farid – 8th place, first syndi seat (13 seasons)

10. Bob W – 9th place, first syndi seat (7 seasons)

11. Rene – 9th place, fourth syndi seat with 1 Main Event (9 seasons)

12. Matt H. – 11th place, first syndi seat (8 seasons)

13. Tom B – 15th place, first syndi seat (1 season)

14. Mark S – 23rd pace, first syndi seat (4 seasons)

15. Jonkey – 25th place, seventh syndi seat w/ 2 ME’s (15 seasons)

Huge congratulations to Anthony, Bob W, Matt H, Farid, Mark S and Tom B for winning their first Syndicate WSOP seats!!

We’ll have more info ready in a bit but here are the results of our Bonus Main Event Final Table tourney last night. We had 10 players – 8 with guaranteed seats and 2 that came from the previous night’s 18 player playoff.

All the players began with starting stacks based on their finish this season: David Benjamin, who came in 3rd place overall this season, began with 50 million chips. While Jon Towers and Mark Sawkar, who qualified the night before in the playoff tourney, started with 30 million chips each. The number of chips on the table – 360,400,000 – approximates a typical Main Event Final Table. As do the blinds that began at 200,000/400,000.

Here were the players and their starting stacks:

And the winner is:

Jon Towers, who came up from the playoffs the night before, took it down to earn his first Syndicate Main Event seat. Head’s up began with Dana holding a 220m to 140m chip lead, and the Wizard then extended that to 300m to 60m. But Jon stayed patient (the blinds were 3m/6m at this point) and just chipped away at Dana’s stack. After about 90 minutes of heads up play they got it all in on a flop of 8K7, with Dana holding AA and Jon with K8. It was an exciting finish to a very strange season for us. And it was all the more special for Jon as not only did he earn his seat by getting a top-2 finish the night before, but it was also his birthday!!

Here are the final results:

1. Jon Towers
2. Dana
3. Farid
4. Mark S
5. Rowan
6. Rene
7. David Benjamin
8. Anthony
9. Matt B
10. Bob W

Here’s the field for today’s Main Event Final Table. David Benjamin comes in as the big stack and Jon and Mark come in with the fewest chips. The 45 minute blinds start at 200k/400k. The action starts at 3pm at Joey’s Dance Hall – come on down and check it out!!

Last night Jon “Trouble Towers” and Mark “Jonny Quest” Sawkar took the top two spots in our playoff tourney and will join our guaranteed seat winners today in a winner take all tourney for our final Main Event seat. Matt H, Tom B and Jonkey won the other three $1500 seats..

We’ve made a couple of corrections to the schedule. Here’s the updated version for Season 16.

Today the WSOP announced that all players, dealers, staff and spectators must be vaccinated and provide proof of such. So, going forward, the Syndicate will require the same. Our players must now either be vaccinated and provide documentation or for a short period of time be in the process of being vaccinated and show a current negative test result. After Oct 15th all players must be fully vaccinated.

WSOP NEWS RELEASE

• 

So we finally made it to our final event of Season 15 – twenty months after it began! In our final regular season event we had our only two-time winner this season, Matt B – who also took down event 11 back in February of 2020. In 2nd place was Ranjit, who padded his already insurmountable lead! And in 3rd place Gary F moved from “what are you doing way down there” up into the playoff bracket.

Final Table:

1. Matt B
2. Ranjit
3. Gary F.
4. Andi
5. Anthony
6. Joy
7. Mona
8. David Benj
9. Jack
10. Thane

Here is the season ending LEADERBOARD, RESULTS, STAKE and BANK file.

We’ll have more details later – but for now here is your final leader board. Congratulations to Ranjit and Wendi for winning Main Event seats and to all our other winners and playoff contenders!!

Here is the updated LEADERBOARD ETC (check the tabs at the bottom)

• 

Every season we make projections for what our prize packages will be and those are then adjusted as we go along depending on attendance. It is not uncommon for us to add or remove seats as the end of the season draws near, but this season the adjustment is more dramatic than most. Since coming back from the Covid break, our attendance is significantly lower than our earlier projections. Where we expected to get attendance for the final three events in the 50’s to high 40’s, we are now getting the low 40’s and now the low 30’s. I’m sure we’ll bounce back when the new season starts but this is what we have to work with now.

With about $53,000 to work with our rules lay out our prize packages like this:

• Three Main Event Seats. Two are guaranteed and one will be awarded to the winner of the Final Table Bonus Tourney.

• Twelve $1,500 seats. Eight are guaranteed and five will be awarded to the top finishers of the playoff tourney (remember, one turns into a ME seat). The top two in the playoff will join the eight guaranteed seat winners to play for the final Main Event seat.

You can find a link showing this on the updated leaderboard . You can also see how the money came in on the Bank tab in the same file. Please check the rules page on this site for all of the detail.

Here is The Syndicate Covid policy at least through the end of this season and the Tiki Tourney.

All players must either:

• Be vaccinated and show proof of such (you can text Jonkey a picture or a screenshot) or

• Get a Covid test within 36 hours of the event, send evidence of a negative result, and wear a mask.

And as before, all players are welcome to wear masks at our events. Thanks for helping us keep the Syndicate safe!!

Congratulation to Farid on taking down Event 14. With two 3rd place finishes earlier in the season this moved Farid way up the leaderboard into the guaranteed seat zone! Renee then followed up his pre-covid-lockdown win in Event 13 with a strong 2nd place finish. In 3rd place was Wendi, who is having an awesome season with five top-3 finishes now!!

Final Table:

1. Farid
2. Rene
3. Wendi
4. Jim H
5. Dana
6. Rowan
7. John B
8. Thane
9. Bob W.
10. Bob C.

Here’s the link to the updated file with the Leaderboard, Results, Stake, Schedule, Structures and The Bank. CLICK HERE!

Congratulations to Ranjit for winning our comeback tourney! This win all but locked up Ranjit’s place at the top of the leaderboard. Congratulations also to Jonkey for his best finish of the season in 2nd place. That moved him all the way into the playoff picture. Likewise, Mark’s 3rd place finish put him in contention for the playoffs. We were definitely a little out of practice though as we forgot to take a winner’s picture of the always handsome Ranjit!

Final Table:

1. Ranjit
2. Jonkey
3. Mark Ross
4. David Benjamin
5. Paul R
6. Anders
7. Rowan
8. Wayne
9. Jon T
10. Andi

It was great to see everyone and play some poker together again after such a long break. It seemed like both a long awaited reunion and just like old times! Thank you to Joey for hosting us again at his Clairmont Studio. It felt just like home right from the start! And thanks also to Patsy and Farid for the meatball sandwiches, my favorite off their menu!!

More news soon!!

Congratulations to Rene for his first Syndicate victory since – wait, this is Rene’s first Syndicate victory EVER!!  Way to go Rene!  Back in season 8 Rene managed to get first place overall and represent us in Vegas – but he managed it without a win that year.   In second place was Wendi who continues her torrid scoring pace with her third top-3 finish in just five events.  Paul R came in third for his best result of the season.

Final Table:

1. Rene
2. Wendi
3. Paul R
4. Dana
5. Jim H
6. Joy
7. Bob W
8. Droo
9. Ranjit
10. CraigL

Next UP:  We don’t know.  Our season is now suspended until it is clearly safe for us to all play together again.  Once it is safe for us to play we will complete our season and then wait for the next safe opportunity to play in Las Vegas.