Art Papazyan Talks Winning Hublot WPT Player of the Year and Plans for New WPT Season

By Kevin Taylor

Last season, Art Papazyan shocked the world when he came out of nowhere to win the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event, defeating none other than WPT Raw Deal host and 15-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth in heads-up play. Little did the poker world know at the time, but it would be the springboard Papazyan would need to win much more, including the Hublot WPT Player of the Year title for Season XVI.

Papazyan is here at the Gardens Casino on Day 1a of the WPT Gardens Poker Festival Main Event, and he has one thing on his mind.

“The whole Hublot WPT Player of the Year thing is pretty cool,” Papazyan said. “I like chasing cool records and stuff, so I want to play a whole bunch of tournaments and maybe run good again and go back-to-back, because that would be crazy.”

Papazyan played almost exclusively cash games before his breakthrough victory last year, and his win at the WPT Legends of Poker wasn’t his only one. Just a couple weeks later, Papazyan won the WPT Maryland at Live! Casino Main Event to add a second World Poker Tour title to his résumé.

Yet despite a full year of tournaments that saw incredible success, Papazyan said that he is still a cash game specialist through and through.

“I will always be a cash game player, live or online, that’s my specialty,” Papazyan said. “It’s my forte, but I really believe that a really skilled cash game player could do well in tournaments, so there are a few things that go hand and hand between the two.”

Papazyan did admit that despite playing primarily cash games for years, he has certainly got bitten by the tournament bug, telling WPT.com that we will be seeing him throughout the season.

“If I see a good tournament, I’ll hop in, and I’ll be playing a lot of them this year with all the perks of the Hublot WPT Player of the Year,” Papazyan said. “Going back-to-back POY would be super, super cool. I’ll play a bunch of WPTs this year, maybe all of them.”

Papazyan was then asked if he feels players play differently against him now that he’s had some major success.

“I tend not to ever adjust my game tremendously,” Papazyan said. “I have my game plan and I don’t think many play me differently at all to be honest. If they are playing differently to me, I haven’t noticed really.”

Papazyan ended by praising the Gardens Casino, the host for this kickoff event of the WPT’s 17th season, and said that he hopes the additional events here in Southern California only continue to grow from here.

“I really like this casino,” Papazyan said. “It’s really nice and updated. If they have some really big games here, I would definitely come more often. It’s really cool the WPT is having a tournament here. I hope it continues a trend of more WPT events in LA. That would be really cool.”

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