Draper Deal

The Dealer's Second Shuffle 🃏

adjusts headset with the slow resignation of a creature who can feel her gills drying out in this digital dust bowl. Welcome back to the Deadlands, partners—Week 2 of the Draper Deal is in the books, and the House has officially raised the minimum bet. Fifteen souls braved 54.7°F clouds and 6.6 mph winds at River Bottoms, where the yellow baskets sat waiting like patient creditors.

The RPA Pot Gets Deep 🥞

If you're looking for where the real action went down, look no further than the top table. Houston Finch didn't just win RPA—he burned the table down and rebuilt it in his image. A blistering -12, a 1048-rated round, a staggering +51 above his rating. That's not a hot streak; that's a supernatural pact, and I'm contractually obligated to note that the Noose Protocol's spectral rope now coils around a bag that just posted the round of the day. Tyler Waldo slid into second at -10, while Kenneth Oetker carded a pristine bogey-free -8 to lock down third—more on that cleanliness in a moment. Malachi Vazquez kept climbing, improving from -2 last week to -6 this week, and earned himself a spot in the 420 Club with a birdie on the 420-foot hole 13. Nicholas Jennings showed the kind of grit that keeps you out of the culling, recovering from OB trouble on holes 2 and 9 to climb from 8th to 7th.

Four Cards, One Winner ♠️

Over in RAD, only four players sat at the table, but the hand played out with real tension. Craig Bennett took the division with an even-par 929-rated round—a remarkable +33 above his 896 rating, which in Deadlands math means he found a way to beat the House without holding any face cards. Thomas Sautel caught fire on the back nine, shooting eight strokes better than his front to climb from 4th to 2nd, though his +4 finish landed 38 points below his usual 928. Taylor Thilo and Zack White rounded out the field, with Zack's -69 rating drop serving as a reminder that the frontier doesn't care about last week's scores.

The One-Card Showdown 🔪

Solo divisions are the loneliest poker games in the Deadlands—just you, your disc, and the House taking notes. Dillon Mueller defended his RAH crown from Week 1, but it came at a cost: a +13 round and a -123 rating drop from his 924 standing. That's not a slide; that's a cliff. David LaTour claimed RAE with a +15, also well below his 839 rating at -58 points, but both secured the bag and held the final cash spots in their respective divisions. Sometimes survival is the only victory condition.

Clean Sheets and Dirty Scores 🧼

Let's talk about the best card nobody's talking about enough. Kenneth Oetker went bogey-free across 18 holes at River Bottoms—the only player in the field to do so. He drilled a 39-foot Circle 2 putt on hole 1 and never looked back, riding par trains through both nines like a man who signed a separate contract with the frontier. Meanwhile, the rating swings were brutal across the board: Houston Finch's +51 was the day's peak, but Dillon Mueller's -123 and Zack White's -69 showed the harsh variance baked into this cursed landscape. Hole 9 played tough with a +1.0 average in Pool A, though Scott Belchak, Houston Finch, and Philip Romney all bucked the trend with birdies—proof that someone always reads the dealer's tells.

Curses and Cash Prizes 💰

The Super Ace Pot continues its slow, tantalizing growth, now sitting at $2,990.00 after 13 contributors added $26.00 to the "LETS GOOO" pool. No chains were hit this week, which means the pot stays intact and the anticipation builds. Someone's going to cash in eventually, and when they do, the Deadlands might just let out a spectral cheer.

Noose Protocol Finds New Neck ⚔️

The Noose Protocol has a new sheriff, and his name is Houston Finch. A 20-spot climb from tag #21 to #1 in Pool A, powered by that -12, 1048-rated masterpiece. The spectral rope coiled around his bag now pulses with crimson light, and you can almost hear it creaking as it tightens around the competition. In Pool B, David LaTour held onto the Dead Reckoning tag despite his challenging round—sometimes the frontier lets you keep what you've earned. With All-In mode in effect, every tag was redistributed based on standings, proving that in the Deadlands, no position is safe. A single round can bury you or crown you.

Survival Gets More Expensive 🥇

The House raised the minimum bet this week, and the Draper Deal showed exactly what that means: the competition tightens, the ratings swing wider, and the gap between survival and the culling shrinks with every throw. Seven weeks remain in this nine-hand poker game, and if Week 2 taught us anything, it's that momentum can flip faster than a riverboat hustler palming aces. Next week, the ante goes up again. The frontier's harsh, but this leaderboard? Downright cruel.