Teddy Thalhuber and friends came north (and quite a bit west) to have a go at a Circuit ring here in Canada. While the heads-up was playing out, his rail told me they drove in from Minnesota for the series, so it was quite a trip for them just to get here.

No doubt it will be worth the trip after Thalhuber picked up his first Circuit ring and $24,487 for the win. That is, of course, in Canadian money, which Thalhuber jokingly had to confirm with tournament staff during the final table. "I didn't realize we were playing for funny money," he said wryly.

Thalhuber was pretty quiet at what was otherwise a pretty loud table. That went for both actual volume, and on-table antics. He had to contend with a table full of local regs with a lot of banter between the likes of Duff Charette, Talal Shoush, and Chris Alcindor. It was a fun, boisterous table, with Thalhuber playing the part of quiet straight man for most of it.

That patient, quiet style paid off as he slowly accumulated chips and held the lead for much of the endgame. He picked his spots and was more than happy to get out of the way to big bets in many cases, before picking off a big pot with a value call. He had to battle Charette heads up and faced relentless aggression.

Charette was on the short stack for all of heads-up, despite taking a lot of pots with shoves or reraises. Thalhuber was able to fold when he had little invested, while finding the value in the bigger pots to stay ahead. Both players were suited in the final hand, with Thalhuber on against the lower diamond gappers for Charette with nine-high, but also a sparkling six to potentially find straight outs with.

Thalhuber flopped a flush draw while Charette bricked. Thalhuber hit a king on the turn to take a commanding lead, and Charette had a parting sarcastic, but jovial, comment about hitting his nine on the river. That left the American import with all the chips and the ring.

It's worth noting that while Thalhuber had a good chuckle at our Canadian "funny money" during the FT, even after exchange, the $24k in funny money he won tonight will come remarkably close to doubling his $21,251USD lifetime earnings to date. My guess is the exchange will make this win SLIGHTLY lower than $21kUSD, but there won't be much in it and it will have blown his previous high score of $4,225USD out of the water.

I'm guessing they have gas money to get back home after the series, at least.

Duff Charette was in his usual aggressive mood tonight. He was the player to capture Chris Alcindor's small stack to send him out in 3rd place and got to heads-up play a little behind the eventual winner Teddy Thalhuber. He played an aggressive heads-up game with a lot of shoves preflop or on flops, but Thalhuber rarely took the bait.

He played a patient game, mucking hands on several occasions to big raises or bets from Charette. Charette was able to chip up some, but it was never quite enough as Thalhuber found places to raise himself, clawing back big pots. In one particular case, Thalhuber flopped bottom pair, put in a value bet on the turn, then check-called a big river bluff from Charette for 500k.

That put Charette under a million, and he amped up the aggression with the open-shove being his main move. Thalhuber waited patiently until he woke up with a suited king and called Charette's preflop shove. Charette was also suited, but smaller, and while he rivered a pair, Thalhuber had already turned his king for the best hand.

Charette fell just short of the ring this time around, but he already has a ring. He was here in May and took down the Mystery Bounty game, neither that one or this was even close to his biggest score. He has more than $1.5 million in poker earnings, with his best single score at $284,095 for a Deepstacks win here in Calgary in 2016.

It was limped to the   and they checked through to the turn. Thalhuber fired 100k and Charette called to the river. Thanhuber checked and Charette bombed the pot for 500k. Thalhuber called pretty quickly and his seven-six was good as Charette was trying to steal it with four-deuce.

Charette is down under a million now, and Thalhuber has nearly 3 times as much.

They limped to a flop of and they both checked to the turn. Teddy Thalhuber bet 75k and Duff Charette called to the river. Thalhuber sized up to 225k and Charette let out a big sigh.

"Was that the best card in the deck for you?" he asked rhetorically before tossing in the call. Thalhuber tabled for the turned flush, and Charette said he had the queen of diamonds as he mucked his hand. Thlahuber has a slight lead now, but there's not much in it.

There will be no epic comeback for Chris Alcindor he got his final few blinds in after Duff Charette raised enough to put him all in from the big. He had a pretty hand -- -- but he was behind the ten-three for Charette. Alcindor turned a gutshot but bricked the river and will have to wait for another day to win his second ring.

They are down to three remaining now with Teddy Thalhuber leading the way with about 1,6 million to 1.3 million for Duff Charette while Chris Alcindor is trying to make a comeback from the short stack for his second Ring this year. Charette is also on pace for his second ring this year after he solved May's Mystery Bounty.

There were 105 entries for the $1k Turbo tonight, so 16 players will be sharing $79,625 in prizes later tonight. I'm still watching the final table of the Two-Day, so I won't be watching this one for a while yet.

There are 69 entries on the board for the $1k Turbo tonight with action in Level 5. Entries are open for a bit more than 2.5 hours now, so it looks like a decent bet that there'll be more than 100 entries before it closes down.

The Turbo $1k is a second chance foe $1k players to get their game on. The action gets going at 4 pm and they'll play down to a winner tonight. Players sit down with 30k in chips to play 20-minute levels until a winner is decided. Late entries will be accepted until the start of Level 12, with the final chance to enter at about 8:10 pm tonight.

I won't be watching the early levels of this one very closely as I'll be on Day 2 of the Two-Day $1k until it ends, but this Turbo is priority #2 for me today.