David "The Dragon" Pham is the 2007
Card Player Player of the Year (POY). He clinched his second POY title after
Jonathan Little, the last remaining player who could've caught Pham with a victory at the
World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Classic that's still taking place at Bellagio, was eliminated and out of the running.
Pham also won the POY award in 2000. He joins
Men Nguyen (four) and
T.J. Cloutier (two) with multiple POY titles.
Pham took over the POY lead from
J.C. Tran at the end of August when he took second in the
WPT Legends of Poker.
Dan Harrington won that event, but the 1,600 points Pham earned put him at the top of the leader board, where he stayed.
Pham finished the year with 6,562 points, only 814 points ahead of Tran and 1,290 ahead of Little.
Scott Clements was only 1,425 points away from the lead, making the race as tight as ever down the final stretch.
Both Little and Tran -- the latter slumping in the second half of 2007 after exploding to the front of the leader board in early months -- made a push for the prize in December.
In fact, Pham had to come up with a win in December in order to hang onto the lead. On Dec. 5, he took down a $2,500 preliminary event at the
Five-Diamond Poker Classic that was good for 1,152 points. If he didn't finish at least in second place in this event, Tran would have taken over the lead after he won a $5,000
Five-Diamond preliminary event five days later.
None of the contenders made much noise in the $15,000 main event that's still taking place at Bellagio.
Pham cashed 18 times in 2007, making the final table 11 times. He won four events, including the $5,000 heads-up event at the
Mirage Poker Showdown. He also won two events in the
Winnin 'O' the Green tournament series with buy-ins of $500 and $1,000. He won more than $1.8 million playing poker tournaments in 2007. Please
click here to view Pham's tournament page to see his results.
After coming out of the gate with two victories before the end of April, Tran's success slowed down a bit. However, he still managed to cash 15 times, including three wins. He won the money battle with Pham by more than $1 million ($2.9 million on the year).
Click here to view Tran's tournament page, and
here for the Player of the Year list.
