The World Series of Poker has begins today, and as always it is guaranteed to dramatically change the landscape of the 2015 Card Player Player of the Year race, sponsored by CarbonPoker. Here’s a look at the biggest tournament result from the calm before the storm and a look ahead at some of the coming highlights of the WSOP:
WSOP Circuit Foxwoods Main Event
With the WSOP now underway in Las Vegas, the Circuit has now wrapped up for the summer. At the final stop of the spring a total of 376 entries were made in the 2015 World Series of Poker Circuit Foxwoods Resort main event, building a prize pool of $565,315.
In the end the lion’s share of that money was awarded to David Kluchman who emerged victorious with his first WSOP Circuit ring, the $124,370 first-place prize and 600 Player of the Yeart points.
This was Kluchman’s second final table of 2015, having finished runner-up in a $1,100 no-limit hold’em event at the Mohegan Sun in March. He now has 840 POY points to his name, enough to move him into 118th place in the overall standings.
Looking Ahead: WSOP Week 1
The WSOP hosts a number of events in it’s first week that are sure to award plenty of POY points. The first open event, a $5,000 no-limit hold’em event that is sure to attract all of the game’s biggest names that have made their way to Las Vegas. This buy-in price point frequently results in some of the largest POY-point-awarding events of the year. For example, the first full-ring $5,000 no-limit hold’em event last summer awarded 1,680 points to eventual champion David Miscikowski.
The much discussed “Colossus” $5,000,000 guaranteed $565 buy-in is expected to draw the largest field in live tournament history. The winner is all but guaranteed to score 720 POY points, limited a bit by the smaller buy-in.
The other highlight of the first weekend is the $10,000 limit deuce-to-seven triple-draw lowball. The event drew 120 players last year, awarding 660 POY points.
Click here to check out CardPlayer’s full coverage of the 2015 World Series of Poker.
Here is a look at the current top 20 in the POY standings:
| Rank | Player | POY Points | Earnings |
| 1 | Anthony Zinno | 4,216 | $1,519,144 |
| 2 | Taylor Paur | 2,994 | $1,422,274 |
| 3 | Joe Kuether | 2,791 | $1,307,454 |
| 4 | Dzmitry Urbanovich | 2,598 | $2,568,415 |
| 5 | Adrian Mateos Diaz | 2,376 | $1,276,805 |
| 6 | Kevin Schulz | 2,308 | $1,494,177 |
| 7 | Jean Montury | 2,232 | $817,303 |
| 8 | Manny Stavropoulos | 2,100 | $1,270,283 |
| 9 | Ivan Luca | 2,037 | $819,144 |
| 10 | Scott Seiver | 1,950 | $2,368,868 |
| 11 | Diego Ventura | 1,900 | $907,080 |
| 12 | Jose Ivan Montes | 1,872 | $593,192 |
| 13 | Steve O’Dwyer | 1,840 | $2,582,677 |
| 13 | Nicholas Pupillo | 1,840 | $240,417 |
| 15 | Igor Yaroshevskyy | 1,830 | $687,372 |
| 16 | Muhyedine Fares | 1,806 | $776,240 |
| 17 | Jose Carlos Garcia | 1,775 | $457,309 |
| 18 | Charles Carrel | 1,760 | $1,437,241 |
| 19 | Lennart Uphoff | 1,750 | $793,927 |
| 19 | Mike Leah | 1,750 | $701,350 |
