Player of the Year

At some point each summer, the World Series of Poker completely changes things in the Card Player Player of the Year race. This year, those changes were felt during the final stretch of preliminary events. There are now three new players in the top five on the leader board, and there’s a new front-runner for the title.

Sam Stein has scored a number of big cashes in 2011, and many of them came this summer at the Rio. Ironically, it was one of his smallest cashes that allowed him to leap over Galen Hall for the top spot in the POY race. Stein was four points behind Hall after his gold-bracelet victory in the $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event. He then cashed in 24th place in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship to bank 54 points, making him the new leader in the race with a total of 4,334 points.

Elsewhere in the top five, Maxim Lykov jumped into third place after his first gold-bracelet win, which came in a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event. That win gave him 1,440 points, putting his 2011 total at 3,876 points. Lykov has jumped into the top five on the strength of his five final-table appearances this year.

Another player who grabbed a spot in the top five was Chris Moorman. He can now claim fourth place in the standings with 3,875 points after the two top-three finishes he booked during a successful WSOP run, which put him in the running for that POY award, as well.

Ben Lamb was the third player to join the top five. He made the jump to fifth place thanks to a first bracelet-win. Lamb won the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship event (the same event that gave Stein the POY lead). Lamb garnered quite a few more points for his finish than Stein did, banking 2,160 to grow his 2011 total to 3,636.

WSOP Bracelet-Winner Player of the Year Breakdown

The first two-thirds of WSOP preliminary events had not produced a first-place prize of more than 2,000 points, but the last 15 events produced two such prizes. Lamb’s 2,160-point win described above was the first. The second 2,000-plus-point prize went to Joe Ebanks, who won 2,400 points as the champion of the $10,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em championship event, which was enough for him to jump into a tie for 23rd place with Aussie Millions champion David Gorr and European Poker Tour Grand Final champion Ivan Freitez.

NOTE: Non-open buy-in events are not included because they do not award POY points.

$10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship Ben Lamb 2,160 points
$1,500 no-limit hold’em Andre Akkari 1,440 points
$2,500 seven-card razz Rep Porter 1,296 points
$1,000 no-limit hold’em Kenneth Griffin 1,440 points
$10,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em championship Joe Ebanks 2,400 points
$2,500 Omaha/seven-card stud eight-or-better Owais Ahmed 1,440 points
$1,500 no-limit hold’em Athanasios Polychronopoulos 1,440 points
$2,500 deuce-to-seven triple-draw lowball Lenny Martin 1,116 points
$5,000 no-limit hold’em triple chance Antonin Teisseire 1,920 points
$1,500 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better David Singontiko 960 points
$2,500 mixed hold’em Matt Matros 1,440 points
$1,000 no-limit hold’em Maxim Lykov 1,440 points
$50,000 player’s championship Brian Rast 936 points
$1,500 no-limit hold’em Hasan Anter 1,440 points
$5,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better Nick Binger 1,680 points