Player of the Year

The Card Player 2009 Player of the Year (POY) race has experienced some big changes during the first 14 events of the World Series of Poker. There have been thousands of points awarded to bracelet winners (see the list below) and final-table players at the Rio, resulting in a new POY leader for the first time since January. Cornel Cimpan scored the first WSOP cash of his career when he finished in fourth place in event No. 10 ($2,500 pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha). Cimpan won $69,546 and 720 POY points for this finish, which gives him 3,450 points total.

Cimpan now holds a 450-point lead over Poorya Nazari, who is in second place with 3,000 points, and rounding out the top three is Jude Ainsworth from Ireland, who has 2,840 points.

The bulk of Cimpan’s points came when he won the L.A. Poker Classic main event in February, for $1,686,760 and 2,400 points. He made another final table at the LAPC when he finished fifth in a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event to secure an additional 330 points.

WSOP 40th-Anniversary No-Limit Hold’em Event Vaults Vitaly Lunkin Into the Top 10

The 2009 WSOP kicked things off with a $40,000 no-limit hold’em tournament that attracted all of the big-name professionals and commemorated 40 years of the Series. This event’s buy-in was the largest ever for a no-limit hold’em tournament at the WSOP. The prize pool created by the 201 players who entered set a WSOP record, $7,718,400, excluding main events.

Vitaly Lunkin emerged from the tough field with the win, which was good for $1,891,012 and 1,440 points. He now has 2,477 points, which puts him in sixth place on the leader board. Lunkin captured his second WSOP gold bracelet with the huge victory; his first came in a $1,500 no-limit hold’em event last year. This was his second big win in May; he won the Russian Poker Tour Moscow main event two weeks before the WSOP to take home $443,731 and 1,008 POY points.

Lunkin then scored his second WSOP cash just six days after his $40,000 no-limit hold’em win; he finished 21st in event No. 12 ($10,000 mixed-games world championship). That cash gave him an additional 29 points and another $16,649. Lunkin now has won $2,351,392 playing tournament poker in 2009, which puts him in third place on the money list behind PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Champion Nazari and European Poker Tour Grand Final Champion Pieter de Korver, who each won $3 million in their landmark victories.

Bracelets and Player of the Year Points

If you thought that all bracelets are created equal in the eyes of the POY race, think again. Here is a breakdown of the POY points awarded to each open buy-in event bracelet winner through the first 14 events of the WSOP. Note that there is a premium for the size of the tournament field in POY scoring, making a win in event No. 4 ($1,000 no-limit hold’em), which attracted 6,012 players, much more valuable than a win in event No. 8 ($2,500 no-limit deuce-to-seven lowball), which attracted 147 players.