WPT Season XXII POY Race Wide Open as Second Half Looms
By this point in the year in 2023, Bin Weng seemed to have a strong grasp on WPT Season XXI Player of the Year honors, following his back-to-back WPT Main Tour final table appearances and his victory in the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship event.
But by the time the tour had rolled through Florida and arrived at the 2023 edition of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, several players had a chance to overtake Weng with one tournament to go. Weng held on, joining the ranks of Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, Faraz Jaka, Bertrand Grospellier, J.C. Tran and more than a dozen others in achieving WPT Player of the Year honors.
With the second half of WPT Season XXII set to kick off in a matter of weeks in Australia, the winner of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown – in this case Josh Reichard – is once again in the driver’s seat in the WPT POY race heading into the fall.
But the race this time around is far tighter and the competition’s more compelling. There are six main tour stops to come – in Gold Coast, Australia; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Jacksonville, Florida; Jeju, South Korea; Hollywood, Florida and finally Las Vegas. The current WPT POY leaderboard also features several WPT Prime champions, and in the matter of a close race remaining Prime Championship events in Liechtenstein, England, Montreal and Paris could well make the difference when all is said and done.
Ahead of this upcoming race to the finish line, the current WPT Season XXII Player of the Year leaderboard stacks up as follows.
1. Josh Reichard 1,350 points
Josh Reichard started racking up significant live tournament wins in late 2013, flexing his aptitude with MSPT, Heartland Poker Tour and WSOP Circuit titles. Most notably, Reichard racked up a once-time record 15 WSOP Circuit rings over the course of that decade.
The one thing missing on Reichard’s record was a major title. He came tantalizingly close with a second-place finish in the $1,000 Mini Main Event at the 2023 World Series of Poker, along with a variety of other notable final table close calls. That all changed over April and May as Reichard first made the final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, and then one month later in Las Vegas topped a talent-laden final table to finally break through as a WPT champion.
Reichard’s current lead is also thanks in part to a cash on WPT Voyage, with his run in the WPT Prime Voyage Championship tacking a few extra points that puts Reichard ever-so-slightly ahead of the current No. 2 player on the leaderboard.
2. Dan Stavila 1,300 points
Dan Stavila had one of the most surreal weeks a poker player could have in Montreal back in May. He made the televised final table of WPT Prime Montreal, immediately hopped into the WPT Montreal Championship Event and then navigated his way to that final table as well.
As if playing at televised final tables on back-to-back nights wasn’t a wild enough experience, on the second night Stavila was three-handed for the WPT Montreal Championship when a storm blew through Montreal and knocked out the power. Once play resumed, Stavila finished second.
When added to his fourth place WPT Prime Montreal finish, Stavila is within a hair’s breadth of the WPT POY lead. One more run in any of the remaining events on the schedule could push him to the top, and with a return to Montreal for WPT Playground set for October, there’s every reason to believe Stavila could try to capture the magic there one more time.
T-3. David Dongwoo Ko 1,150 points
David Dongwoo Ko also managed to cash in both WPT Prime Montreal and the WPT Montreal Championship Event in May, and while his WPT Prime result was for just over a min-cash, his victory at Playground Poker Club have him well-positioned for a run at WPT Player of the Year should he so choose.
The last year has represented a major step forward for Ko, with three WSOP Circuit rings and, just this week, a significant side event victory at EPT Barcelona. Ko’s pair of results in Montreal represent his first results under the WPT banner, but it feels safe to imagine quite a few more to come.
T-3. Eric Afriat 1,150 points
Eric Afriat’s name is already in a few different places in the WPT record books. He’s a three-time member of the WPT Champions club, tied for second all-time. In May, Afriat locked up a spot at his eighth career WPT Main Tour final table at the WPT Choctaw Championship, now tied for third-most all-time in that regard.
With four overall cashes in Championship Events in 2024 alone, Afriat has positioned himself to make a run at yet another major milestone in his WPT career with one of his best shots at WPT Player of the Year honors.
5. James Mackey 1,100 points
When it comes to Choctaw Casino & Resort in Durant, Oklahoma, no player has managed more WPT success at the venue than James Mackey. He first broke through in Season XV, taking down his first WPT Choctaw title in 2016. In 2022, Mackey returned to the WPT Choctaw final table for the second time, finishing sixth.
Then, in May, Mackey locked down his third career final table at the venue. A few weeks later, when the final table resumed in Las Vegas, Mackey defeated Afriat heads-up to become just the second player in WPT history to win the same event twice, joining two-time WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open champion Brian Altman in that regard.
6. Landon Tice 1,050 points
Landon Tice has drawn significant attention thus far in 2024 for a variety of reasons. Most of the attention he got early on in the year was in regard to his summer bet against Jeremy Becker, in which 100% of their tournament action was cross-booked. Neither ultimately put up a major score during that time period, though Becker did manage to claw back a decent amount of his losses with a better summer.
Tice may well have used up all of his “run good” before a single card was dealt at the 2024 WSOP. He made the final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in April, and then in May got heads-up with Reichard for the title. While a first major live title simply wasn’t in the cards that night, Tice’s first major televised final table was an experience to remember, and perhaps a launchpad to even greater things as the WPT roars back into action in the second half of its schedule.
T-7. Lorenz Schollhorn 1,000 points
The first wild card on the WPT Season XXII leaderboard is Lorenz Schollhorn. The Swiss-born player rolled into WPT Prime Gold Coast in April and took the tournament by storm, ultimately emerging from a 1,395-entry field to win $267,998.
All but one of Schollhorn’s other recorded live cashes on The Hendon Mob have come in the great game of Pot Limit Omaha. But with a WPT World Championship seat bake into his WPT Prime Gold Coast victory, Schollhorn will have at least one more chance to prove he can dominate in a two-card format as well.
T-7. Jereld Sam 1,000 points
Jereld Sam is a recent addition to the top 10 of the WPT Season XXII POY race, courtesy of his victory in the WPT Prime Taiwan Championship in August. His $250,699 payday is far and away the largest live result of his career, and he’ll have a chance to top it in December with his buy-in to the WPT World Championship already taken care of.
Sam will be in search of his first ever cash on U.S. soil, and all but one of his recorded live tournament results to date have come in tournaments held in a variety of Asian countries.
T-9. Rutger Hennen 900 points
Back in March, Rutger Hennen was one of the first players to put his stamp on this edition of the WPT POY race when he won the WPT Prime Amsterdam Championship for $228,354.
To that point in his career, Hennen had only recorded results in live events in his home country of Netherlands, but he’s since posted results at both the 2024 Irish Poker Open and in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event; in the latter, Hennen put together another deep run, finishing 31st. Hennen will have a chance to add an American flag (or a few) to his Hendon Mob profile when he plays in the WPT World Championship in December.
T-9. Tudor Purice 900 points
Like Sam, Tudor Purice infused himself into the WPT Player of the Year race in August. Purice, who is from Romania, traveled to Cyprus to capture his WPT Prime title, taking home a $183,270 prize including his own seat to the 2024 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
The win in Cyprus was the largest of Purice’s career, topping a victory in Bucharest in 2017 and a deep run in the 2013 EPT London Main Event.
11-20: Jesse Lonis, Andres Vasquez, Kosei Oguri, Gregory De Faria, Yakiv Syzghanov, Jikai Zhang, Priamo Carta, Fabian Guma, Florent Remi, Konstantin Held
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