2010 represents the seventh year for the WSOP Player of the Year, and bets are already being taken on who will win the coveted title. Many consider it the most prestigious tournament award of all because it rewards consistency and a player’s ability to do well in all types of events. The prize is tailor-made to the individual winner. The first year, when Toyota was the sponsor, that car was the prize. In succeeding years, Erik Lindgren got a custom Harley-Davidson motorcycle, Jeffrey Lisandro received three WSOP Main Event buy-ins.
With the bracelet events just underway – it is wide open. But within the next week, the stalking horses will emerge and the rest of the pack will do their best to maneuver themselves into contention. Let the games begin.
Here is how the POY is decided. Points are awarded to everyone who cashes in a WSOP open tournament (except for the Employees, Ladies and Seniors), with the number of points based on the type of event and how high a player finishes. At the end of the WSOP, the player with the most points is crowned Player of the Year. There are four different points models. Normal events, called the Standard Points Model, award 100 points for first place, 75 for second, 60 for third, etc., down to five points for anyone who cashes 28th or lower. The limit and no-limit shootout events and the heads-up tournament have somewhat different structures, though all start with 100 points for the winner.
The first winner was Daniel Negreanu, followed by Allen Cunningham, Jeff Madsen, Tom Schneider, Eric Lindgren and Jeffrey Lisandro. Here is a rundown of the achievements and background of each year’s winners.
Daniel “The Kid” Negreanu is one of the most recognizable, popular and successful superstars in the world of poker. In taking down the first POY award in 2004, he won a bracelet in $2,000 Limit Hold’em, made five final tables and had a total of six cashes. Negreanu, born in Toronto, Canada, started playing when he was 15, and was so confident of his ability that at age 21 he dropped out of college, just one credit shy of graduation, moving to Las Vegas to become a full-time poker player. To date, his total tournament cashes worldwide exceed $12 million. He has a total of four WSOP bracelets. He won his first in 1998 for Pot Limit Hold’em, becoming at that time the youngest bracelet winner in WSOP history. Negreanu has his own online poker school, has written numerous articles on poker, contributed to Doyle Brunson’s “Super System II,” and has appeared on various poker game shows.
In 2005, Allen Cunningham’s five cashes included a win in $1,500 No Limit Hold’em, and his four others were all at final tables. Cunningham, 33, is married to another well-known poker pro, Melissa Hayden. He was a civil engineering student at UCLA before dropping out to pursue a career in poker, and his polite and unassuming demeanor at the table has earned him the respect of his peers. His more than $10 million in total cashes include five bracelets, and he demonstrated his versatility by winning all of them in different events. His other four were for $5,000 Seven Card Stud in 2001; $5,000 Deuce to Seven Lowball in 2002; $1,000 No Limit Hold’em with re-buys in 2006; and $5,000 Pot Limit Hold’em in 2007. His biggest cash was $3,628,513 when he finished fourth in the Main Event in 2006. Other notable cash-outs include a $300,000 “Mega Match” victory on “Poker. After Dark” and a $499,162 win in the championship event of the WSOP Circuit at Caesars Palace in 2008.
Jeff Madsen earned his POY title in 2006 by winning two bracelets. One was a $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event that paid $660,948, the other a $5,000 short-handed No Limit Hold’em tourney that paid $643,381. He also made two additional final tables, including a third in $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo. At the time he won his first bracelet, a month past his 21st birthday, he was the youngest ever to do so, and is still the youngest to win two in one year. A resident of Los Angeles, Madsen gained fame in baseball before doing so in poker. He was a member of the Pacific Palisades High Dolphins team that won the City Invitational Baseball Championship at Dodgers Stadium. (That was also the same school that Chris Ferguson had attended.) The 25-year-old pro earlier this year won the championship event of the Borgata Winter Open, and his prize of $625,006 pushed his career earnings past the $3 million mark.
The next POY winner, in 2007, was Tom Schneider. He racked up two wins, in a $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha and Seven Card Stud Hi Lo event, and a $1,000 Seven Card Stud Hi Lo tournament, along with a fourth in $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. Schneider, 50, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he learned poker at age 10, playing with his mother and friends. He now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was a certified public accountant and also chief financial officer and president of three Arizona companies before turning to poker in 2002. Schneider’s total cashes to date are more $1.6 million. He is the author of a book called “Oops! I won Too Much Money: Winning Wisdom from the Boardroom to the Poker Room” which combines both business and poker advice. He is also co-host of a poker podcast and a contributing columnist at Pokerati.
Erik Lindgren, 33, earned his POY title in 2008 by winning one bracelet in Limit/No Limit Hold’em, along with a third in a $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event paying $781,440, a fourth in $5,000 No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball, a 10th in $1,500 Limit Hold’em and 18th in the $10,000 championship No Limit Heads Up event. Lindgren, originally from Burnley, California, where he was a football and basketball star in high school, now lives in Las Vegas. He began playing poker in his spare time while working as a blackjack dealer in an Indian casino in northern California, eventually becoming a full-time pro playing in tournaments worldwide. Lindgren is the author of “World Poker Tour: Making the Final Table.” His total tournament cashes now exceed $7 million.
And last year, Jeffrey Lisandro ran off with the POY award by winning three bracelets, in $1,500 Seven Card Stud, $10,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud Hi Lo, and $2,500 Seven Card Razz. He also had a ninth in the $10,000 world championship Seven Card Stud event, along with cashes in $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo and $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha. Lisandro is something of a world traveler. He was born in Perth, Australia, later lived in Salerno, Italy, now owns a home in Santa Barbara, California, but still calls Salerno his home. Lisandro, whose nickname is “The Iceman” for his calculating demeanor while playing, was a real estate investor before turning to poker full time. He learned poker from his mother at age five and is considered one of the world’s best cash game players. His tournament wins now exceed $4 million. He also won a bracelet in $2,000 Seven Card Stud in 2007.