There’s something that feels inevitable about Hank and Five-Card Draw. He plays it more on-line than anyone else in the GPT, and it’s a game that places a premium on reading hands and situations. Starting with 11, we got down to the “final table” at seven. Phil went out relatively quickly, and then the game ground for over an hour before losing another player. After that Tim bubbled to set the four-way stage of Cash Money Playas.

Candy eliminated the next two players (and scored three of the last four kills missing only Tim) building a huge chip stack, and Hank and Candy settled in for a long head-up battle. The drama was too much to Tim to take, and he didn’t wait around for the end this time. Candy began head-up with a chip lead, but Hank whittled it down over time. When they were nearly even in chips they worked out a chop for the cash, and continued playing for points. Hank finally won, scoring his only kill of the day and his first of the year.

Hank now has cashed is every event except Hold’em, and Candy has cashed in two events including the Hold’em win. For the season Candy maintains a Hank-esque lead over the field with 72 points, with Hank and JD neck-and-neck at 56 and 55 points respectively. There currently are two players in the Top Eight who only have two events: Lee and Sean.

JD remains the leader for the Kill Trophy despite missing the year’s biggest even, Hold’em. JD’s 10 kills have Alex notched, whose nine kills also comes from only three events. Candy’s eight kills ranks third.

The new TOC-rake method of 8% of all buyins/rebuys/add-ons has been quite a success. The pot currently is $117 after only four events. By way of comparison, last year’s total pot was $185. Even ignoring Hold’em, that’s a pace that will translate into a bigger prize than Season 1, when we played 21 events (there are 15 this season).