WSOP Announces Revamped 2017 POY Format, Award
The news just keeps coming from Las Vegas’s Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino amid the run-up to the 2017 World Series of Poker. Fresh off the major announcement of a new live and nearly-live broadcast arrangement with both ESPN and Poker Central (which Flushdraw’s Dan Katz reported on yesterday), the WSOP continued its major pre-series news blast with a release highlighting other “new and noteworthy” happenings at this year’s series.
Among them: The WSOP has revamped its Player of the Year formula for 2017, moving away from its casual partnership with the Global Poker Index (GPI). The WSOP continues to enjoy a warm relationship with the GPI, which had provided a points-earning formula for the POY chase for the past couple of years. However, the GPI’s global formulas weren’t quite the right fit for the WSOP’s distinct needs, and instead, the WSOP will move to a “proprietary” formula more closely tailored to the particular buy-ins and field sizes of the WSOP’s schedule.
The WSOP also announced that the prize for this year’s WSOP Player of the Year will be a seat into the 2017 WSOP Europe Main Event, which will take place in early November at the King’s Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic. Here’s the complete text of the official release:
Player of the Year Presented by King’s Casino: Kings Casino Rozvadov is the new sponsor, awarding the 2017 WSOP POY a seat into the 2018 WSOP Main Event. In addition, the player that has accumulated the most points in Las Vegas over the first 71 open events will receive a seat to the 2017 WSOP Europe Main Event at King’s in Rozvadov. With WSOP Europe on the calendar in 2017, there are a total of 82 WSOP gold bracelets in play to contest for the WSOP POY crown in 2017, 71 open events in Las Vegas and 11 in the Czech Republic at WSOP Europe. The POY points will no longer use the GPI formula for calculations, but instead use a proprietary formula. The winner will be celebrated with their own banner as well.
There’s always a bit more to the stories such as this, which we’re able to add today. The WSOP’s Player of the Year formula has been the topic of good-natured controversy and debate as often as not. Among the more recent issues was the general consensus that the GPI’s points formula did not give enough weight (or POY points) to the winners and top finishers in smaller buy-in, deep-field events.
That’s seemingly been rectified in the changes implemented for this year’s POY chase, according to general chatter.
The announcement of the POY formula produced some friendly banter from WSOP execs as the “new and noteworthy” presser was prepped for publication. As Welman herself noted yesterday on Twitter:
.@WSOP making changes this year and one I am very happy about is ditching the GPI-powered POY formula!
— Jessica Welman (@jesswelman) May 16, 2017
That generated this response from Seth Palansky, the WSOP’s Vice President of Corporate Communications and the Editor-in-Chief of WSOP.com:
We’re using the Jess system. She gets all the credit (or blame) this year!
— Seth Palansky (@SethPalansky) May 16, 2017
Palansky may have been joking about Welman being responsible for the changes to the system; we’ll all just have to wait and see. General consensus on the change away from the buy-in weighted GPI formula of recent years has been positive, however, even without full details on the changes being released.
As part of its sponsorship of the POY chase and in conjunction with its upcoming hosting of the 2017 WSOP Europe, Rozvadov’s King’s Casino will enjoy increased visibility this summer at the Rio. King’s Casino will sponsor a special “room within a room” amid the WSOP’s annual cash-game activity.
In addition to its huge tournament schedule, the WSOP also offers up to 91 tables of cash-game action. 15 of the 91 tables 15 “will be inside a specially-designed upscale lounge featuring the latest amenities and comforts,” likely designed to cater to high-roller play. King’s Casino owner Leon Tsoukernik will be on hand for much of the WSOP, promoting this fall’s WSOP Europe to likely and on-the-fence participants.
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