Player of the Year Update -- World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table

The 2012 World Series of Poker wrapped up for the summer last week, with its 61 events making an absolutely huge impact on the 2012 Card Player Player of the Year race, sponsored by Lock Poker. The biggest event of all, as far as the POY race is concerned, is not yet over however. The 2012 WSOP main event reached its final table last week, and the final nine are set to return to the Rio in late October to battle it out for millions of dollars and thousands of POY points. Here is a look at what is up for grabs:

In addition to the championship bracelet and the more than $8.5 million first-place prize, the winner of this event will also earn 3,300 POY points, which would automatically move a player with no prior scores into third place as of the time this article was published. Current POY leader Kyle Julius has 3,752 points.

The only member of the final nine who is already inside the top 50 in the POY race is Greg Merson, who currently sits in 29th place with 1,800 points. Merson took down one of the biggest tournaments of the summer when he topped a tough 474-player field in the 2012 WSOP $10,000 six-max no-limit hold’em championship just days before the main event began.

As a result of this huge win and the 1,800 points it bestowed upon him, Merson can overtake the lead in the POY race as it currently stands with a finish of third place or higher, as he needs only 1,952 points to surpass Julius. A fourth-place finish in October would be enough to move Merson into third place behind Dan Smith given the current standings.

Merson enters the final table in third chip position with 28,725,000.

Here is a look at the complete chip counts for the final table:

The rest of the final table have little in the way of 2012 POY qualifying scores, but all of them have a chance to be major factors in the race after October. With 2,750 going to the runner-up, even a second place finish would put one of these players inside the top five in the POY race as it currently stands.

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