Tournament Season

After the World Series of Poker, there is always a month or two when it quiets down. The reason is that it is hard to play an event with a few million dollar prize pool after competing for a $50 million prize pool. Many players take a little vacation to refresh and prepare themselves for the remainder of the calendar year. To me, poker has only three seasons. The winter and spring blend together with big tournaments in Tunica, at Commerce Casino in L.A., on the PartyPoker cruise, at the Shooting Star, and at the $25,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Championship at Bellagio.

The next season is the World Series of Poker. It lasts only about six weeks (which is an eternity at the time), but so many bracelets are handed out and the money is so big for it not to be considered its own season. After the World Series, there is a slight lull in poker action, and many Americans fly to Europe because there are always a few events there. The lull ends, however, when The Bicycle Casino kicks off the new season of the WPT on American soil.

Then there is the fall, which is when the race for Player of the Year gets hot. Just recently, there was a $10,000 WSOP Tournament Circuit event in Las Vegas at Harrah's that Chris Ferguson won. Good job, Chris. You continue to crush opponents in any World Series of Poker-related tournament. Now there is nonstop action until the end of the year. The Borgata Poker Open recently concluded and some players headed down to Aruba for UltimateBet's tournament. The circuit pros then moved on to the Taj in Atlantic City, followed by Bellagio in October, Foxwoods in November, and back to Bellagio in December. If that is not enough, players can find a different World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit event to play in every few weeks. If you are lazy like me, you can stay at home and sweat the events as they take place at CardPlayer.com.

Now that you know the schedule, it is time to step up your play if you want to win the Player of the Year award. The problem is that John Phan has a nice lead. However, there's a handful of people who can pass John with a championship win or a couple of wins in smaller events. At the beginning of fall, there is always a player who starts to separate himself from the rest of the pack. Then out of nowhere, someone who plays in a lot of events makes a couple of WPT final tables and wins an untelevised event. Before we know it, we have a situation like the one we had last year when David Pham pulled ahead of Daniel Negreanu for a few minutes and the Player of the Year award was determined in the final event. The problem with trying to catch John Phan this year is that he plays in so many events.

This leads me to a prediction: John Phan will have the lead going into the $15,000 buy-in championship event at Bellagio at the end of the year. Ted Forrest will finish in third place or better in that event. Thus, if John wants to win Player of the Year, he will have to make the final table in that same event.