For seven weeks every summer, poker players flock to the World Series of Poker to chase down big scores, gold bracelets and Player of the Year points. Those POY points will now be built around a modified version of the BLUFF Player of the Year formula.
"It's been obvious that our Player of the Year system needed a little bypass surgery," said Ty Stewart, WSOP Vice President. "BLUFF's new POY format has been lauded by players as the best and most complete in the industry, so they were natural partners to help us tweak our model. We look forward to watching the excitement play out across all 62 open bracelet events.
The new system awards points in the 54 preliminary WSOP events and all seven WSOP Europe events based on three multipliers: buy-in, field size and finishing position. Players who cash in any event other than the Ladies Championship, the Casino Employees Event and the Seniors Championship will be awarded POY points.
"We altered the formula only slightly from our own to reflect the buy-in levels and field sizes of WSOP events," said Lance Bradley, BLUFF Magazine Editor in Chief. "We believe the new system increases the credibility of the already prestigous WSOP Player of the Year award."
Due to the massive field size and large buy-in, the WSOP Main Event has its own point system. The winner of the Main Event will automatically earn 500 POY points, the runner-up 350 with the bottom 50% of those who cashed earning 25 points.
"The Main Event was the most difficult part of revamping the Player of the Year system," said Bradley. "It's an entirely different beast but we think we've given it the proper treatment without making it so that someone can win Player of the Year simply by taking down the Main Event."
Fans will be able to follow the race throughout the 2011 WSOP on BluffMagazine.com and WSOP.com. Past winners of the WSOP POY include Frank Kassela, Jeffrey Lisandro, Erick Lindgren, Tom Schneider, Jeff Madsen are Daniel Negreanu.
To learn about the formula used to determine points for each open WSOP event, please click HERE.
To view the current 2011 WSOP Player of the Year Standings, click HERE.