Oh, Daniel

In my last column, I wrote about how David "The Dragon" Pham had done the amazing and had passed Daniel Negreanu and John Juanda to take the lead in the Player of the Year standings with one event left. As is the case in some sports, you can't say it is over until the last second ticks off the clock. Daniel needed to finish in ninth place or better out of 376 players in Bellagio's Five-Diamond World Poker Classic $15,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em championship to win. This to most was an old-fashioned, "Yeah, right!" Well, not only did he talk the talk by saying he was still going to win, but he walked the walk and won Player of the Year honors and the event. That's right, he won that no-limit hold'em championship event. Daniel made it down to the final six players with more than six times the amount of chips of his closest opponent. The others at the final table were: Humberto Brenes, Jennifer Harman Traniello, Vinny Landrum, Steve Rassi, and Nam Le. By winning almost $1.8 million for first place, Daniel became the all-time leading money winner on the World Poker Tour. There will be more on Daniel Negreanu's year in the next issue.

Each year, we change a couple of criteria for calculating Player of the Year points. We will do the same for 2005. In the next issue, the new criteria will be released. However, I will share with you some of our thoughts here. First, we will probably award points for making the final three tables in $10,000 buy-in events if they are paid. It certainly is an accomplishment in some of these huge events to finish 27th or better (at least as far as the pocket book is concerned). We may raise the minimum buy-in to $500, but that hasn't been determined yet. There will also be a minimum number of players in order for an event to count. There are enough players these days that a field of one table should not count. Finally, there is the subject of invitational events. Invitational events with more than 100 players may count. Feel free to e-mail me your thoughts at happy@www.cardplayer.com.

As a new year begins, we have to look back and be thankful for poker's growth and success in 2004. Everything that had anything to do with poker reached all-time highs. Be sure to read Lee Munzer's cover story and reminisce about this past year. Hopefully, 2005 will be the year for you to climb to the top. Happy New Year!