The talk of the poker world the past few days has been the mess the World Series of Poker found itself in on Friday when it was discovered that a data entry error led to the Player of the Year point totals being incorrect. After fixing the mistake, presumed winner Daniel Negreanu was bumped down to third place and Robert Campbell was annointed the new and proper Player of the Year.
In a blog post on FullContactPoker.com, in which he said he was not upset about the news, Negreanu also offered up his suggestions for changes to the POY system. The timing might look suspect on first blush, but he did tweet out these same ideas a few days earlier and has been pushing for changes for years. Negreanu is known in the poker world as a bit of an obsessive when it comes to the Player of the Year chase, so he has had his mind on it a lot.
“We want the stretch run to be about people chasing final tables and wins, not max late regging, hoping to double once, then grab the points from a min cash. It’s silly, and I felt silly doing it,” he wrote.
Here are his five suggestions, straight from his blog post:
1. Limit the number of cashes that count towards your total to 12. This gives more people a chance to win POY and focuses on quality over quantity. It no longer incentivizes people to chase min cashes down the stretch.
2. Decrease the value of a min cash in mutlti-heat [sic], large field reentry events. It is not an accomplishment to cash in Colossus when you have 9 heats with a reentry in each.
3. All min cashes should not be treated equally. A min cash in a 3000 player field is much easier than a min cash in a 100 player field 10k buy in mixed event. It’s significantly harder to cash in the latter, while the former is hardly an accomplishment at all, especially when you are paying 15% of the field.
4. Decrease the main event points awarded. You would still make this the premier event when it comes to points and get a ton, just slightly less than you do now. This is important when decreasing the number of cashes that count.
5. Divide points by number of entries. If you play in an unlimited reentry event and use 4 bullets, your point total should be divided by 4. So for example, lets [sic] say you win an event that would get you 1000 points, but rebought three times. Now, you would get 1000/4 for 250 points. I’m less invested in this one, but many people seem to feel strongly about this one.
“I was proud of putting in the hard work necessary to win, but when I win POY I don’t want there to be any doubt in anyone’s mind as to whether or not I was deserving,” Negreanu added. “I hope for a system that rewards quality over quantity, and I do believe the WSOP will work towards that and get it right eventually.”