WSOP Player of the Year: How does it work?

Image Courtesy: WSOP Website
Image Courtesy: WSOP Website

For seven weeks every summer across the globe, poker fanatics flock to the prestigious World Series of Poker to grab gold bracelets, chase down sky high scores and seize Player of the Year points. 

This coveted honor of WSOP Player of the Year(POY) 2013 is calculated from the commencement of 2013 1st Annual World Series of Poker Asia Pacific, closely followed by 2013 44th Annual World Series of Poker and the grand 2013 World Series of Poker Europe. Matthew Ashton is currently leading the race for WSOP POY 2013 after a year-long rigorous toil and consistent performance and has received 649.75 POY points for his tremendous efforts. Other notable names in this year’s POY contention are Daniel Negreanu, Loni Harwood and David (Bakes) Baker.

Well-known winners of the prestigious award of WSOP Player of the Year include Erick Lindgren in 2008 and the famed Daniel Negreanu in 2004. Jeffrey Lisandro in the year 2009 scooped the award after his extraordinary 3 bracelet victories.

Bluff Magazine inspires the new POY scheme

The dispute over Frank Kassela’s victory in 2011 WSOP led to sudden abrupt changes in the criteria for choosing the player of the year. Bluff Magazine is slated to be the inspiration behind the changes adopted by WSOP in choosing the player of the year. POY points are now built around a personalized version of the BLUFF Player of the Year formula. These set of changes further contribute in alleviating the credibility of the already esteemed and the most coveted award of the poker industry- WSOP player of the year.

This latest system rewards points in the 54 prelude WSOP events and entire seven WSOP Europe events which are based on the following three multipliers: buy-in, field size, followed by the finishing position. The poker players who succeed to cash in at any event except the Seniors Championship, the Casino Employees Event and the Ladies Championship shall be honored with POY points. BLUFF’s new and innovative POY system has been lauded by eminent poker players as the finest and most comprehensive in the industry.

Scoring criteria for WSOP Player of the Year 2013

Bluff Magazine has been lucky to administer the WSOP Player of the Year race for the third consecutive year. This year’s winner respectfully earns a free entry into the grand 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event, and also the 2014 World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific Main Event, followed by 2014 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event.

When calculating points, the following three criteria are taken into account. The final points are estimated by multiplying these three factors mentioned below:

1.       Place finished at the final table

The final eight will be given points for stud events whereas for six-handed events, points will be awarded to the final six. In the heads-up events with up to 64 entrants, points will be received by the top four and furthermore, for heads-up events having either 65 entrants or more, the top eight shall be awarded with points. Lastly for hold’em and remaining typical freeze out tournaments, points will be rewarded to the final nine players.

2.       Quantity of the buy-in. 

3.       Number of entrants.