Player of the Year

During the slow stretch of tournament poker action in late summer, it is a good time to turn an eye to November, when the largest prizes of the 2011 Card Player Player of the Year race will be awarded.

The winner of the 2011 World Series of Poker $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event will earn 3,600 points. Those are enough points to put a player with no prior 2011 POY-qualified results into sixth place as of press time.

However, a winner with no prior 2011 POY results still would be 36 points behind November Nine member Ben Lamb, who comes into November in fifth chip-position with 20,875,000. If Lamb were to claim the world championship, not only would he be the WSOP Player of the Year, he would be the runaway favorite to win the Card Player POY award, as well, with 7,236 points. Last year, Thomas Marchese won the POY award with 6,738 points, so Lamb could make the final stretch of the race a little less of a sweat than previous years if he bagged a world title.

Every player who has advanced to November is guaranteed at least 300 points, so Lamb unofficially holds at least 3,936 points as of the end of the summer stretch of the WSOP, which is good for third place overall.

Only three other November Nine players hold POY points at press time: Phil Collins (828 points), Pius Heinz (360 points), and Eoghan O’Dea (216 points). Even the highest-ranked player among this trio would need a third-place finish (2,400 points) at the final table to enter the top 10 and make a serious challenge for the POY lead.

This is all speculation at this point, but the presence of Lamb in the November Nine has made the main-event final table a major factor in the 2011 POY race. Not even current 4,000-point club members Sam Stein (4,334 points) and Galen Hall (4,284 points) are safe if Lamb makes a deep run in November.

Here is a look at the POY points that will be awarded in November:

Finish Points
1st 3,600
2nd 3,000
3rd 2,400
4th 1,800
5th 1,500
6th 1,200
7th 900
8th 600
9th 300