San Diego Syndicate

Congratulations to Wendi for her first Syndicate Victory!!  This was her fifth score and third final table of the Season which brings her up to 3rd place in the overall standings!In 2nd place was Mark Ross who went from waaaaay down the leaderboard to being in the running to be in the running.  In 3rd place was Farid – his second 3rd of the season.  And Kyle, Craigy, and Bob W rounded out our money winners

Final Table:

1. Wendi
2. Mark Ross
3. Farid
4. Kyle
5. Craigy
6. Bob W
7. Don C
8. Chad
9. Wayne
10. Don B

The next tourney is on Saturday March 7 and the Evite is already out.

Congratulations to Matt for his victory in event 11.  Matt came to the final table with a big stack and it just kept growing.  By the time he knocked out Mark S and Ranjit (in 5th and 4th respectively) in the same hand (Matt had QQ against two AKs) he had a Jupiter-sized stack going into 3-way action.  This was Matt’s first win since the 12th event of Season 13 and moves him well up the leaderboard.  In 2nd place was The Wizard which moves him up to 4th place overall – just 10 points behind David Benjamin.  In 3rd place was your commissioner who, going back to last season, had gone 12 events without a score!

Final Table

1. Matt B
2. Dana
3. Jonkey
4. Ranjit
5. Mark S
6. Joey
7. Rene
8. Gary F
9. Bob C
10. Anthony

Next up is our third Major of the Season on February 15th

Congratulations to David on his win Saturday night.  This was David’s 6th overall win, including two wins last season. Rookie Syndicator Tom Brown came in 2nd place – his second runner-up result in the last three tourneys.  These finishes put David and Tom in 2nd and 5th place overall respectively.  In third place was Paul H who now has finished in the points, including three final tables, four times in a row.

Final Table:

1. David B
2. Tom
3. Paul J
4. Scotty
5. Craigy
6. Kelsi
7. Steve A
8. Justin
9. Scott D
10. Matt H.

Our next tournament is this Saturday, February 2nd, and the Evite is already out.

Congratulations to Gary for his first win since event two of Season 13 and his 3rd overall.  Gary is going for his second Main Event in a row and this win put him back in the running – just 100 points behind Ranjit, the leader.  Bob Cosway took down 2nd place while Wendi earned a 3rd place finish.

Final Table:

1. Gary B
2. Bob C
3. Wendi
4. Gary F
5. Don C
6. Chris B
7. Anthony
8. J. Paul Hopkins
9. Shawn
10. Ranjit

Our next tourney will be on Saturday, January 25th.  The Evite is already out.

Congratulations to The Wizard for his first victory since last event of Season 13.  Also to new player Tom Brown for his best Syndicate finish by far.  Right behind them in 3rd place was David with his second top-4 finish in a row.

Final Table:

1.  Dana
2. Tom
3. David B
4. Rick Harrel
5. Matt H
6. Jim H
7. Jon T
8. Gary B
9. Chris B
10. Spork

Our next tourney will be on Saturday, January 11.  The Evite will go out shortly.  Happy Holiday everyone!!

Congratulations to Rowan for her second Syndicate victory and her fourth final table this season!

Final Table:

1. Rowan
2. Ranjit
3. Don C
4. David Benjamin
5. Anthony
6. Rick
7. Tom
8. Bob C
9. Paul H
10. Matt H

Leaderboard and results are updated

Congratulations to Bob W for his first Syndicate victory!!

Final Table:
1. Bob W
2. Steve A.
3. Anthony
4. Jon T
5. Kathy
6. Joy
7. Jim H
8. Matt B
9. John B
10. Keith

The leaderboard and all results can be found HERE

And he’s back!! Congrats to Alan on his first victory after a prolonged dry spell of 3 tournaments without a win. And congrats also to Ranjit for taking over the top spot on the leaderboard!

Final Table:
1. Alan
2. Ranjit
3. Farid
4. Rowan
5. John B
6. Gary B
7. Don B
8. Joy
9. Bob W
10. Michael

Updated Season Leaderboard and Results Here

Full Leaderboard and Results HERE

Congratulations to Brad for taking down his second Syndicate tourney and his first since the 10th event of Season 12.  In 2nd place was Matt H and Steve P took 3rd.  Dana, Ranjit, Alan and Mona took 4th to 7th to round out our money winners.

The Final Table:

1. Brad
2. Matt H
3. Steve P
4. Dana
5. Ranjit
6. Alan
7. Mona
8. Craigy
9. John B
10. Andi

The Leaderboard:  We’ve had three winners so far and those players are all tied for the top spot: Mark S, Wayne and Brad are all in the blue.  Behind them is a 4-way tie for 4th between Drew, John B, Matt H and Rowan.  Anders stands alone in 8th place in the final guaranteed spot.

The full leaderboard and tournament results can be found HERE

Coming Up: Our next event is scheduled for October 12th at :200 pm.  This is a Major deep-stack tournament with a 40,000 chip starting stack. The buy-in is $150 ($140 + $10).  If you receive an evite – please RSVP as soon as possible  –  it really helps!

By the time there were about 8 players remaining Wayne had a ginormous stack and it just kept growing from there.  The final-3 of Wayne, Wendi and Drew played for almost an hour before Drew knocked out Wendi.  Still, Wayne had a huge chip advantage going into heads-up play and it was over 8 minutes later.

This was Wayne’s fifth win as he enters his tenth Season as a  Syndicator.  Wayne definitely deserved this victory after completing a big project by putting much needed new curtains up in our poker room.

Here’s the Final Table:

1. Wayne
2. Drew
3. Wendi
4. Rick
5. Scott A
6. Steve A
7. Kyle
8. Rowan
9. John B
10. Jimmy X

The Leaderboard:  Unlike last season no-one who has played in both events is in a combo-situation yet (ask one of our surfers what that means) as no player has earned more than 100 points yet.  Wayne joins Mark S up at the top followed by a 3-way tie for 3rd place between Anders, Rowan and Drew.  Wendi and Kelly are tied for 2nd place and our late night “floor” John B is in 8th to round out our current guaranteed seat-holders.

The full leaderboard and tournament results can be found HERE

Time:  We are putting a big effort into starting and finishing on time this season and we did pretty well on that this tourney with a 2:05 pm start and a 12:58 am finish  One of the keys was new-guy Craig L showed up at 11:45 and had all the tables and chairs done even before our usual early arriving players showed up to set up.  Thanks Craig!!

Speaking of set-up – we are looking for a few more volunteers who we can count on to show up at 1PM regularly to help set-up.  It’s an easy job with enough people and it really makes a difference.  Let me know if you can help.

As for the finish – we really want these tourney’s to end by 12:30 am so we’ll probably make a couple of adjustments for the next re-entry tourney since there are so many more chips in play.

Coming Up: Our next event is scheduled for September 21st at :200 pm.  This is a regular deep-stack tournament with a 25,000 chip starting stack and 25 to 30 minute levels. The buy-in is $150 ($140 + $10).  If you receive an evite – please RSVP as soon as possible  –  it really helps!

Once we got down to heads-up we were guaranteed to have a first-time Syndicate winner as (surprisingly) neither Mark S nor Anders had ever won before.  The winner ended up being Mark, who had a sizeable lead going into heads-up play.  In third place was Kelly, followed by Rowan, Dave R, Paul R and Kelsi – who all made the money.

This was the first event of our 15^th season.  My son was in diapers when this league started and now he’s a senior in high school!  A lot of our players have now been with us for a very long time, and really, that’s why this group keeps going. But at the same time we get new players every year and it seems like the ones that care, and take the league seriously, help us stay vital and bring us new life.

Not everyone was there  last night so I’d like to I’d like to restate some of the things I mentioned before the tourney:

Congratulations to Alan, David B, Gary B and Ranjit for winning their Main Event seats.

We also sent NINE players to $1500 events and had two cashes – by Scott D and Wendi. We may not have won enough to do a distribution this year but we are definitely looking strong going into this season!

Special thanks are due to:

• Joey – for being a fantastic host and essentially saving the Syndicate last year
• Joy – for handling our buy-ins every tournament.  It’s likely that Joy is the only person besides me that knows everyone’s name!!
• Scott D and Mona – for arriving early every tournament to help set up.  I know I should get there earlier more often – but it is sure nice to arrive and have everything setup!
• Patsy and Farid – for feeding us for all these years.  Yes, I love the Hawaiian chicken and meatball sandwiches – but holy moly was that tri-tip amazing last night!!
• Don Bisco –  for handling pretty much everything I don’t want to deal with.
• Our committee – Gary F, Keith, Paul H, Matt B and Chad (and the sub-committee of Craigy and Alan) – for providing more ideas and support then most of our players realize.
• And of course Anthony – since what’s the point of all this if we can’t have someone as cool as him to hang out with twice a month for most of the year?!

The Final Table

1. Mark S
2. Anders
3. Kelly
4. Rowan
5. Dave R
6. Paul R
7. Kelsi
8. John B
9. Ranjit
10. 10. Bob C

The Leaderboard:  Since this is the first tourney of the season – the leaderboard looks exactly like last night’s results

Coming Up:   Our next event is scheduled for September 7th.  This is a deep-stack re-entry tournament with a 25,000 chip starting stack. The buy-in is $150 ($140 + $10).  Unlimited re-entries for the first 6 levels plus a surrender option.   The evite for this event is about to go out – please RSVP as soon as possible  –  it really helps!

Our season 15 schedule is ready – you can check it out HERE.  The first half schedule is set.  The second half is solid – but will not be final until some time in October.  There is a “makeup date” in each half in case we have to cancel and reschedule a tournament – so leave those dates open just in case.  We are still working on the formats for all the tourneys so check back later for those details.

Our Season 15 merch is available now!  We went back to a more classic look based on one of our first-ever designs. The goal was to make it simple enough that even Anthony would like it!  As always the designs are available on a variety of shirts, hoodies and all sorts of other items.  We’re sure you’ll notice that one version has solid colors for the spade and the club while the other fills those suits in with whatever the background color is.  Choose accordingly!

Be sure to check out our Merch Page for more choices and all the details.

July 13. 2019

The Tiki Tourney was Tikirific! This has always been a fun summer party/tourney but we finally put it all together this time. As I said at the tourney, when I created the invitation and named the venue Kim’s Tiki Oasis, I had never been there and didn’t know it was an actual TIKI OASIS!!

Thank you so much to Kim and Jim for inviting us to their tropical hideaway in Encinitas and for being such gracious hosts. A big thanks also to Patsy and Farid for putting on such a fantastic feast for us all day long. And we’ve never had so many helpers before but Yasmeen, Carolyna, Carina, Megan and Davey gave us great service too – and they were very appreciative of how generous the Syndicators were with tips.

More thanks too to Kim and her band – The Highstrung Band – for a sensational concert during our dinner break. And we even have our own original song now!!

As for the tournament (oh yeah, we had a poker tournament too!): we had 62 entries and 22 re-entries (thanks Steve Potashnick!) for a prize pool of – well, it was big! The top-13 players cashed and we had a final table of John B, David Bernatz, Patsy, Jon Ingalls, Anders, Tamer, Doug, Thane and Spork. The first 5 did a chop at the end with John B and Dave taking a little more.

But of course the real winners were Don Bisco and Kelsi Burley who won the coveted Bali Hai mugs – The Goof on the Roof and Mr. Bali Hai – this year for the best Tiki/Hawaiian attire – mahalo iāʻoe!

Don & Kelsi

Mr. Bali Hai & The Goof on the Roof

Finally, a big mahalo to all the Syndicators for making this such an amazing poker group – let’s play Season 15!!