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Updated: March 8, 2026

Interested in going to play an event in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Vegas next year? Not willing to cough up the $1000 US for the cheapest event? Well, this is the deal.

League Final Prizes:

League Final prizes are either Grand Prizes or Preliminary Event Prizes.

Grand Prizes ($10,000 USD in Value):

We will provide one to three Grand Prizes each year. A Grand Prize is $10,000 USD towards one of the following tournaments: WSOP Main Event, WSOP Europe Main Event, WPT $10,000 Event of your choice. Year specific prizes will be shown on the Standings page for that season.

Preliminary Event Prizes:

All prizes from the league final that are not WSOP Main Event Prizes will be called Preliminary Event Prizes. Preliminary Event Prizes can be used at any poker tournament series such as WSOP Las Vegas, WSOP Circuit Events, WPT Deepstacks, WPT Wynn, WSOP Europe or elsewhere. Year specific prizes will be shown on the Standings page for that season and will range from $1,000 CAD to $5,000 CAD. We will typically have 6-11 Preliminary Event Prizes.

League Money Commitments:
Each player pays $750 CAD (or $530 USD) up front payable prior to first event as a League Fee. All league fees go to the end of the year prize pool. Each player also pays $100 CAD per event that they play in for the individual events prizepool.

Any player who drops from the league will receive no refund and are ineligible to receive any portion of winnings from Grand Prize cashes.

Points:

It works like this, each event, we will have a tournament with cash prizes for top 6-15 players depending on number of entries, and points awarded to top 22 league players. Points are awarded as follows...

1. 10000

2. 8000

3. 6500

4. 5000

5. 4500

6. 4000

7. 3500

8. 3000

9. 2500

10. 2000

11-14. 1500

15-18. 1000

19-22. 500  

League Final:

The league leader in points at the end of the 10 event season will be guaranteed at least a $1,000 CAD buy-in Preliminary Event Package no matter where that player finishes in the league final. If there is a tie for points for the league lead the tiebreakers will be as follows:

1. Most money earned.

2. Number of first place finishes, number of second place finishes, etc, etc.

The league leader will also get the chance to play in the League Final in an attempt to win a Grand Prize or Preliminary Package of greater value than the guaranteed package.

The remainder of the prize packages will be determined in a league final tournament. Everyone qualifies for the league final. At the League Final, each player will get 1,000 chips plus they receive 1 extra chip for each point they received during the regular season (Regular season and League Final tournament formats and blind schedules below). There will be no entry fee or prizes for the Final, except the League Final Prizes.

Splitting Prizes for Grand Prize Winners
The winners of the League Grand Prizes agree to split any monies won from the event paid for by the $10,000 USD Grand Prize at either the WSOP Main Event, WSOP Europe Main Event, WPT $10,000 Event (“GRAND PRIZE EVENT”) of your choice, with the league members. For Grand Prize winners that win money at a GRAND PRIZE EVENT, the first $5,000 USD of the prize is kept by the league winner. The League will get one-third of any cash prize won at the World Series of Poker (or other tourney series) before taxes above $5,000. In this way, the league will still be able to participate in any truly big wins, but the winner can reap higher rewards from min-cashes. The league share will be divided evenly among all players that have paid all of their league fees by the end of Event #10. If the league share is less than $20 per person, the league will keep the money to be added to the following seasons’ prize pool. Also, the league will round down to the nearest $10 increment per person and keep the extra as money to be added to the following seasons’ prize pool. Also, to be clear the league is only entitled to a portion of the cash prize received from the GRAND PRIZE EVENT. The player keeps 100% of any monies received from any endorsements they may receive from online sites, ESPN or otherwise due to participation in the event. Please note that if the winner decides to play any other events with their own money in these poker series including, but not limited to, rebuying into the same tourney after busting, the league is not entitled to any winnings from those other buy-ins.

For Preliminary Event Package Winners

Those league members that win a Preliminary Event Package are entitled to keep 100% of their winnings from any event they play with the prize money.

Regular Tournament Structure:
Each event, players will begin with 16,000 chips.

The blind structure is set up to finish the tourney in about 7 hours with a target end time of around 2am. If tournaments start to last beyond this time at a regular rate, the blinds may be adjusted for future tournaments.

For the Mystery Bounty tournament we will add in 200/500 and 2500/5000 levels to slow it down slightly. Mystery Bounty tourney will start at 6pm and players get 17,000 chips.

Current Structure (for use with 5 tables or more)
Level #	Minutes	Small Blind	Big Blind	Big Blind Ante
1	20	100	100	0
2	20	100	100	100
3	20	100	200	200
4	20	100	300	300
10 Min Break
5	20	200	400	400
6	20	300	600	600
7	20	400	800	800
8	20	500	1000	1000
10 Min Break
9	20	600	1200	1200
10	20	800	1600	1600
11	20	1000	2000	2000
12	20	1500	3000	3000
10 Min Break
13	20	2000	4000	4000
14	20	3000	6000	6000
15	20	4000	8000	8000
16	20	5000	10000	10000
5 Min Break
17	20	5000	15000	15000
18	20	10000	20000	20000
19	20	10000	25000	25000
20	20	20000	30000	30000
21	Unlimited	20000	40000	40000

Last level continues until end of tournament.

Final Tournament Structure (2018-2024):

As for the 2024 final, there will be approximately 706,000 chips in play among 96 players and the blinds structures will be as follows with half hour levels until Level 12:

Final Tournament Structure
Level #	Minutes	Small Blind	Big Blind	BB Ante	Start Time	BB’s
1	30	100	100	0	5:30pm	7060
2	30	100	100	100	6:00pm	7060
3	30	100	200	200	6:30pm	3530
4	30	100	300	300	7:00pm	2353
10 Minute Break					7:30pm
5	30	200	400	400	7:40pm	1765
6	30	300	600	600	8:10pm	1177
7	30	400	800	800	8:40pm	883
8	30	500	1000	1000	9:10pm	706
10 Minute Break					9:40pm
9	30	600	1200	1200	9:50pm	588
10	30	800	1600	1600	10:20pm	441
11	30	1000	2000	2000	10:50pm	353
12	30	1200	2400	2400	11:20pm	294
10 Minute Break					11:50pm
13	30	1500	3000	3000	12:00pm	235
14	30	2000	4000	4000	12:30pm	177
15	30	2500	5000	5000	1:00am	141
16	30	3000	6000	6000	1:30am	118
10 Minute Break					2:00am
17	20	4000	8000	8000	2:10am	88
18	20	5000	10000	10000	2:40am	71
19	20	8000	15000	15000	3:10am	47
20	Unlimited	10000	20000	20000	3:40am	35

Last level continues until the end of tournament. Please note that I reserve the right to change blinds during play or stop the tourney at 2:30am if a winner has not been decided and play out the remainder on a mutually agreed upon date.

Final Tournament Structure (2011 – 2017):

As for the final, there will be approximately 505,500 chips in play and the blinds structures will be as follows with half hour levels until Level 12:

Final Tournament Structure
Level #	Minutes	Small Blind	Big Blind	Start Time	BB’s
1	30	100	100	7:00pm	5055
1	30	100	200	7:30pm	2528
2	30	200	400	8:00pm	1264
3	30	300	600	8:30pm	842
10 Minute Break				9:00pm
4	30	400	800	9:10pm	631
5	30	500	1000	9:40pm	506
6	30	600	1200	10:10pm	421
10 Minute Break				10:40pm
7	30	800	1600	10:50pm	316
8	30	1000	2000	11:20pm	253
9	30	1200	2400	11:50pm	211
5 Minute Break				12:20am
10	30	1500	3000	12:25pm	169
11	30	2000	4000	12:55am	126
12	30	3000	6000	1:25am	84
5 Minute Break				1:55am
11	20	5000	10000	2:00am	51
12	20	7000	14000	2:20am	36
13	Unlimited	10000	20000	2:40am	25

Last level continues until end of tournament.

Tournament Rules:

General Playing Rules:

We will at all times try to follow official TDA Rules set out by the Tournament Directors Association. See TDA Page for details. We have two TDA certified tournament directors in Scott Brynen and Darren Kennedy to help with rule decisions.

Code of Conduct:

The final note I would like to make is that I will be much harder/stricter with rule enforcement, misconduct, drunkeness and perceived cheating.

1. If you are noticeably drunk and slurring words, having trouble walking, etc you will be asked to leave the premises. I have no issues with those that would like to have a drink or two, just keep it under control.

2. If you are caught cheating in any way shape or form you will be banned from not just that event but the league without having any money returned. Cheating includes among other things:

a. Taking chips from another player or from the common stash.

b. Passing chips to another player.

c. Bottom dealing and other dealing mechanics.

3. Misconduct will be dealt with on a per incident basis and includes:

a. Intimidation both verbal and physical.

b. Threatening actions or behavior both verbal and physical. We have no place for the Phil Hellmuth wannabes of the world.

Arbitration:

1. In the event of any dispute on the rules, a league organizer who is not involved in the hand will rule on the hand. Their decision is final.

Dealing:

1. The tournament will be self dealt. Dealer is to let the player on his immediate right cut the cards.
2. A Dealer button will be positioned directly in front of the dealer.
3. The dealer is responsible for protecting his own cards separately from the main deck.
4. The dealer must burn one card prior to the flop, one card prior to the turn and one card prior to the river.
5. The dealer must NOT pre-burn cards.
6. In the event of an exposed card during the deal:
1. If it is one of the first cards dealt to the blinds a miss-deal is declared.
2. If it is any other card, the dealer will continue as if the card was not exposed until the deal is finished. At this point, the dealer will replace the exposed card with the next card on the deck and use the exposed card as the burn card.
3. If more than one card is exposed during the deal a miss-deal is declared.

Late buy-in:

Any player showing up after the tournament begins will be allowed to enter the tournament late even if they are non-league members so long as:

1. It is before the start of level 5 of the tourney and

2. The player can join without us needing to add a new table or push existing tables over 9 people.

Table Balancing:

1. Table balancing will occur anytime one table has at least 2 players more than another table.
2. When a player needs to be moved to balance tables, a player will be removed from the table with the most players that is next on the big blind. If more than one table is tied for the most players the table with higher table number will be used. Example: Tables 1 and 3 have 9 players while Table 2 has 7 players. The next player on the big blind on Table 3 would be moved to Table 2 in the seat that will receive the big blind next (ie the worst position).
3. During the final 2 tables we will balance players in as close a position as possible to avoid giving unfair advantages. So if button busts on table 1 then we will send the cutoff from table 2.

Breaking Tables:

1. When a table is broken the highest number table will break and fill up the empty seats on the other tables.
2. A complete tournament redraw for seats will occur for the final table.
3. We will play 9 handed tables when we have 65 or more players. Once we are at 64 players we will play 8 handed until the final 2 tables. With 2 tables left we play 9 handed and the final table starts 10 handed.
4. We will move from 11 tables to 10 tables when we have 90 players.
5. We will move from 10 tables to 9 tables when we have 81 players.
6. We will move from 9 tables to 8 tables when we have 64 players.
7. We will move from 8 tables to 7 tables when we have 56 players.
8. We will move from 7 tables to 6 tables when we have 48 players.
9. We will move from 6 tables to 5 tables when we have 40 players.
10. We will move from 5 tables to 4 tables when we have 32 players.
11. We will move from 4 tables to 3 tables when we have 24 players.
12. We will move from 3 tables to 2 tables when we have 18 players.
13. We will move from 2 tables to 1 table when we have 10 players.

Coloring up Chips:

1. Color up procedures will be done as roundup. We no longer to chip races. All the lowest denomination chips on each table will be cashed in for bigger chips as much as possible. Anyone with leftover odd small denomination chips will get one next smallest chip remaining in play.
2. Example 1: Player A has 13 100 denomination chips. The next smallest denomination is 500 chip so Player A receives 1,500 chips.
3. Example 2: Player A has 21 100 denomination chips. The next smallest denomination is 500 chip so Player A receives 2,500 chips.

Official Tournament Positions:

4. If two players go out on the same hand on the same table, the player that started the hand with more chips will receive the higher position.
5. If for purposes of points, two players go out on the same hand on different tables, the same rule of who started the hand with the most chips gets the higher placing applies.

Hand-for-Hand Play:

1. There will be no hand-for-hand play in our tournaments. All cash prize bubbles will likely be bursting when there is two tables left but we have decided against hand-for-hand play for the cash bubble. The tournament director reserves the right to go hand-for-hand when he sees fit to do so.
2. The points bubble will occur with 3-4 tables left in all likelihood, but we have decided against hand-for-hand play.

Season 16 – 2021/22 Changes to Rules:

This year rule changes are as follows:

    a. League winners that win something other than a Main Event Prize are now allowed to use that for tournament series other than the WSOP. For example Calgary WSOP Circuit Event

Season 15 – 2018/19 Changes to Rules:

This year rule changes are as follows:

a. Points now being awarded to top 22 league players as follows:

1. 10000

2. 8000

3. 6500

4. 5000

5. 4500

6. 4000

7. 3500

8. 3000

9. 2500

10. 2000

11-14. 1500

15-18. 1000

19-22. 500  

23^rd – last: 0

Season 14 – 2017/18 Changes to Rules:

This year rule changes are as follows:

    a. No more substitutes allowed

Season 13 – 2017/18 Changes to Rules:

This year rule changes are as follows:

    a. This season you will be allowed only one substitute. This is a compromise, but this will only be for one year. Next year there will be no substitutes at all. I feel that giving everyone 1000 points to start, guaranteeing that they get to play in the Final should make up for any perceived loss in having substitutes.

    b. For league winners that win money in the WSOP, the first $5000 USD of the prize is kept by the league winner. The League will get one-third of anything won above $5000. In this way, the league will still be able to participate in any truly big wins, but the winner can reap higher rewards from min-cashes.

Season 12 – 2016/17 Changes to Rules:

There were no rule changes of note for this season.

Season 11 – 2015/16 Changes to Rules:

There were no rule changes of note for this season.

Season 10 – 2014/15 Changes to Rules:

There were no rule changes of note for this season.

Season 9 – 2013/14 Changes to Rules:

1. We are now paying 18 spots for the points.

There were no other rule changes of note for this season.

Season 8 – 2012/13 Changes to Rules:

2. Non-league members now pay $60 to play the tournament.

3. League fees have been raised from $400 for the season to $500, meaning you are now responsible for $50 (instead of $40) for your league fee each event.

There were no other rule changes of note for this season.

Season 7 – 2011/12 Changes to Rules:

1. One last change before the season gets under way tomorrow. When we created the league we gave points for the top 10 players when tourneys were 20-25 players deep. Now we are 60-80 player tourneys and finishing in the top 10 is way harder. As such a lot of people have requested giving points to the top 20. I have resisted a bit mainly due to the difficulty of managing bustouts. However I think it’s time we considered changing the point allocation. What we are doing for this season is giving points to the top 15 as that will usually be in the top 2 tables only and not be that much more difficult to administer than the top 10.

The new point distributions are below:

1^st: 10,000

2^nd: 8,000

3^rd: 6,500

4^th: 5,000

5^th: 4,000

6^th: 3,000

7^th: 2,500

8^th: 2,000

9^th: 1,500

10^th: 1,000

11^th: 1,000

12^th: 1,000

13^th 500

14^th: 500

15^th: 500

16^th-last: 0

Previous points distributions.

1st- 10000 points

2nd- 8000

3rd – 6400

4th - 4800

5th - 3600

6th - 2800

7th - 2000

8th - 1200

9th - 800

10th - 400

11th-last - 0

Season 6 – 2010/11 Changes to Rules:

2. Prizes: This one had lots of opinions, but general consensus is that people like the big Main Event prize and then as many secondary prizes as possible. So we will go with one Main Event Package ($10,000 buy-in + $1000 Cdn cash) and as many smaller packages ($1000 buy-in + $600 Cdn cash) as possible.

3. Money Won in Vegas: we will continue to split monies won in Vegas with the league, but I am going to simplify it to this: one third of the cash prize before taxes goes to the league, and everyone that fully paid their league dues by end of Event #10 will get an equal share. This is a change from before where we effectively got 35% of prize pool and the shares were proportional to number of points you attained during the season. In addition if the league share from WSOP in total from all players is less than $20 per person, the league will keep the money to be added to the following seasons’ prize pool. Also the league will round down to the nearest $10 increment per person and keep the extra as money to be added to the following seasons’ prize pool.

4. Qualification for League Final: Anyone who gets points during the season makes the League Final.

5. Rules: actual poker rules of the game themselves seem fine. I don’t anticipate any changes there. We will continue to abide by official TDA rules.

6. Chip Stacks and Structure: we will do away with the rebuy chip and simply start all players with 12,000 chips. Blind structure remains the same.

Season 5 – 2009/10 Changes to Rules: Season 5 Rules Page

1) If we have over 50 league players, we will be taking the top 24 players to the league final, instead of just the top 20.

2) The league leader in points at end of 10 events will be guaranteed a WSOP Preliminary Event Package and get a chance to play in the League Final for a shot at the WSOP Main Event Package.

3) The top prize is now a seat in the WSOP Main Event worth $12,800 Cdn. Secondary prizes will be $2000 Cdn prizes covering a seat in a $1500 US or $1000 US preliminary event and remaining cash.

4) The league fees for the year have been raised from $300 to $400.

5) There will be no bonus 10,000 chips to take to the League Final. You will only get the points you earned as chips in the League Final.

6) Code of Conduct Section added.

Season 4 – 2008/09 Changes to Rules:

1) If we have over 40 league players, we will be taking the top 20 players to the league final, instead of just the top 10.

2) We are once again bumping up the cash portion of the tourney. It will now be $50 entry for league and non-league members alike. The league fee will remain at $30 per event. The reasoning behind bumping up the buy-in is that we were pushing against our max capacity for the last 4 tourneys and there’s obviously enough interest to do this and two is that if I’m driving 2 hours to play I want that first prize to be bigger.

Season 3 – 2007/08 Changes to Rules:

1. The cash portion of the tourney is moved up to $40 (from $30) while leaving the league fee portion untouched at $30. For league members that translates to an additional $10 per event, but has the much desired effect of upping the prize payouts.
2. We formalized the “late buy-in” rule. Any player showing up late will be allowed to enter the tournament late even if they are non-league members so long s it is: a) in the first hour of the tourney and b) the player can join without us needing to add a new table or push existing tables over 10 people. If they arrive 0-20 minutes late they will have 150 chips removed from their stack prior to play, 20-40 minutes late and they will have 500 chips removed from their stack, 40-60 minutes will have 1000 chips removed. No one will be allowed to join the tournament after the first hour of play.

Season 2 – 2006/07 Changes to Rules:

1. Substitutes: We continued to allow substitutes, but you now need to send someone specifically, that person must approach the tourney organizer and state who in the league s/he is playing for and that person MUST PAY your $30 WSOP drop before the tournament begins for you to be eligible for any points that person gets you.
2. The starting time remained the same at 8pm start but we did our best to get the show going on time as this was the number one complaint from season 1.

Darren Kennedy

darrenkennedydk@gmail.com

778-870-6319