Hublot WPT Player of the Year Race Comes to Florida

By Matt Clark

The Hublot WPT Player of The Year race comes to Hollywood, Florida, for the televised Season XVI WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship. Art Papazyan stands in the lead with 2,400 points and this tournament marks a great chance for those chasing him to gain much-needed ground.

The WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship carries a $3 million guarantee and with it a minimum of 1,200 points for whoever finishes in first-place. If the prize pool reaches $4 million, 1,400 points become available up top.

So far in Season XVI, only two events have featured a prize pool that large, with the $10,000 buy-in WPT L.A. Poker Classic at Commerce Casino and WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio holding honors.

Who Is in the Hunt?

The list of players who can reasonably catch Papazyan starts with Derek Wolters. Via two third-place finishes in Season XVI, Wolters stands with 1,850 points.

According to an interview with Wolters at WPT Rolling Thunder, he is expected to hold off on entering another WPT event until the WPT Elite Poker Championship at Bellagio in May, but poker players can always change their minds.

Papazyan only traveled east from his home in Los Angeles for WPT Maryland in October and is an underdog to register the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship.

Eric Afriat and Joe McKeehen have the best chances to pick up ground in Florida. Afriat, the Season XII WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship winner, picked up the majority of his points at the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open. He starts this Showdown with 1,700 for his efforts that include another final table at WPT Montreal. Following Borgata, the Canada businessman has only appeared at WPT Fallsview in his native country.

McKeehen fell shy of the Winter Poker Open final table in fourth place and followed up that result with the bronze medal in Thunder Valley a few weeks later. The 2015 WSOP Main Event champion cashed at the L.A. Poker Classic along with January’s WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open to give himself 1,600 points heading into this week.

On how the chances of him winning Player of the Year changes his upcoming schedule, McKeehen said, “I’m not chasing it, I’m just playing my usual schedule and whatever happens happens.”

The Dark Horses

WPT Legends of Poker final tablists D.J. Alexander and Phil Hellmuth are both looking to add to their Season XVI totals on different sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Alexander is scheduled to play the WPT Amsterdam Main Event starting on April 16. The prize pool for the event remains a mystery but previous seasons place the expectation at either 800 or 1,000 points up top for the winner. Thanks to four top-20 finishes in Season XVI and two final tables, the most recent coming at WPT Rolling Thunder, Alexander lurks with 1,400 points.

If Alexander can pick up ground in Amsterdam, he transitions toward the Elite Poker Championship and WPT Bobby Baldwin Poker Classic as one of the betting favorites to win the POY title.

Hellmuth started Season XVI with a bang and 1,000 points for his second-place run at WPT Legends of Poker. The only other cash for Hellmuth this season came at the WPT L.A. Poker Classic. Hellmuth added 300 points to his figure with a 15th place run.

The WPT Raw Deal host is in South Florida and plans to register sometime before the Day 1B entry deadline. It will take another final table for Hellmuth to have a chance at gaining meaningful point but is more than capable of the completing the task.

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