Champion of the Year: What a Race!

There is a big trend in poker right now: Lots of the top players are playing fewer and fewer poker tournaments. Seidel, Lederer, Juanda, Ivey, Ferguson, and I are rarely seen outside of the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour tournaments these days. In fact, all six of us showed up right before the Taj Mahal's 10K event, played it and the Borgata's 5K tourneys, and then flew off on our separate ways; we skipped all of the earlier Taj events and all of the later events in Atlantic City. And how about poker legends Chip Reese, Johnny Chan, and Doyle Brunson? They play in fewer events than everyone else, and didn't even show up for the Atlantic City tournaments!

Chan, Seidel, Reese, and I have families, businesses, and side games to occupy our time, and some of the other players have businesses, girlfriends, wives, and side games to tend to in addition to playing poker tournaments.

What this means to me is this: Many of the top players come out only when the stakes are the highest or the tournaments are the most prestigious. Thus, as you are already aware, I developed the "Phil Hellmuth's Champion of the Year" award. This award measures performance in only the biggest and most prestigious poker tournaments in the world. All WSOP and WPT events count, and every other event held in the United States with at least a $2,000 buy-in and at least 65 players counts, as well; go to philhellmuth.com for a complete listing of these events.

Points are awarded as follows, in order of finish from first through ninth place: 200, 160, 120, 100, 80, 70, 60, 50, and 40. This points structure is weighted heavily toward the top, just as prize money is – oftentimes 40 percent for first, 20 percent for second, and 10 percent for third. As you would expect, the Champion of the Year (COTY) award allocates almost 55 percent of the points to first, second, and third place.

Also, a tournament's buy-in size or "tradition" plays a role in determining what it is worth. Thus, the WSOP main event is worth triple, or 600 points, for first; $7,500 to $25,000 buy-ins are worth double, or 400 points, for first (although the 25K WPT Championship event may go up in value in 2004); and the $5,000-$7,499 buy-ins are worth one and a half, or 300 points, for first.

The current race is a tight one, and at this point, with 12 tournaments remaining, any one of the top 16 players can win. The 12 remaining tournaments are: the three Foxwoods $2,000 buy-in events, the Foxwoods $10,000 buy-in WPT event, the Sands $10,000 buy-in event, the Taj Mahal $5,000 buy-in event, and five Bellagio Five-Diamond Poker Classic $2,500 buy-in events and its $10,000 buy-in championship event.

Name Points Final-Table Finishes 1. Phil Ivey 980 5 2. Men Nguyen 920 5 2. Chip Jett 920 5 4. Howard Lederer 840 4 4. Chris Ferguson 840 6 6. Phil Hellmuth 830 5 7. Amir Vahedi 760 4 8. Erik Seidel 745 4 9. Mel Judah 640 4 10. Johnny Chan 600 2 10. Chris Moneymaker 600 1 12. Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott 585 4 13. John Juanda 570 4 14. Ron Rose 550 3 15. Daniel Negreanu 535 4 16. Paul Testud 510 4

We certainly see lots of the same old names up there, but the fact that Johnny Chan is in the top 10 is amazing. After all, he has played fewer than 15 poker tournaments this year! Of course, John Juanda, winner of the inaugural Champion of the Year award, is still in the running with 570 points. Let me give some props to Ivey, Nguyen, and Jett for occupying the top three spots.

There also is some crossover with Card Player's "Player of the Year" award, with Nguyen, Jett, Hellmuth, Vahedi, Seidel, Juanda, and Negreanu among the top 20 there, as of the Nov. 7 issue. However, Ivey, Lederer, and Ferguson aren't in the top 20 there; these two awards really do measure different accomplishments.

The Champion of the Year award will, in all likelihood, come down to the last event of the year, Bellagio's $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em championship – with its 400 first-place points going to the winner.