As if millions of dollars on the line weren’t enough, the WSOP also offers a Milwaukee’s Best Light Player of the Year award to one person during each World Series of Poker. This is typically someone who has dominated play throughout the entire tournament schedule. In hold’em, points are awarded based on a person’s finish, with 100 points going to the first place finisher, 75 to the second place finisher, 60 to the third place finisher, and continuing down to five points just for cashing. Different point structures exist for different types of poker. Play is only tracked during the Las Vegas WSOP (the WSOP Europe and Circuit Events do not count). The Main Event, Seniors Event, Ladies Event, and the Casino Employees tournament do not count. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the top finishers in the 2008 Player of the Year standings.
Erick Lindgren, a Full Tilt Poker pro, won a bracelet and had five total cashes at the 2008 WSOP. He raked in $1,348,528 in earnings, good for 245 POY points and first place on the charts. Lindgren won the $5,000 buy-in mixed hold’em event, cashing for $374,505 and his first ever WSOP bracelet. He finished fourth in Event #18 (No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball with Rebuys) for $156,151, and placed third in the $50K HORSE Championship for $781,440. All five of his cashes have come in different varieties of poker.
Barry Greenstein, a PokerStars pro, finished second in the 2008 WSOP Player of the Year standings. He had one bracelet and cashed six times for a total of $768,461 and 235 POY points, just shy of the total needed to surpass Lindgren. In fact, when Greenstein was eliminated in sixth in the $50K HORSE Championship, he temporarily was in the lead in the POY race, as Lindgren was still in the tournament and had not yet recorded an official cash. Greenstein’s bracelet came in the $1,500 Razz tournament (Event 26). His HORSE cash was worth $355,200.
In third place with 232 points, just three points behind Greenstein, was Jacobo Fernandez. He had a colossal seven cashes in the 2008 WSOP (he cashed in 13% of the events held so far) for a total of $658,100. He made two final tables during the course of the World Series. His first came in a $5,000 no limit tournament (Event 21); the other came in a $1,500 rebuy Pot Limit Omaha tournament (Event 34). He had cashed just once in his WSOP career prior to the 2008 tournament series.
David Benyamine finished in fourth place. His last cash of the 2008 WSOP was a bracelet win in the $10,000 buy-in World Championship Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better tournament. He won over a half million dollars for that win. He had four cashes total for $941,000. Besides his bracelet win, he had two other final table appearances, one each in a $5,000 rebuy Pot Limit Omaha tournament and a no limit 2-7 Lowball event. Benyamine is a regular on High Stakes Poker on GSN.
Other notable finishes include John “The Razor” Phan, who won two bracelets at the 2008 World Series of Poker. He took down a $3,000 buy-in no limit event for $434,789 and followed up that performance with a win in a 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball tournament for $151,911. He’s the only player so far to win two bracelets at the 2008 WSOP.
The rest of the top ten reads like a who’s who of poker’s best: J.C. Tran (winner of the 2006 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker Main Event), bracelet winner Farzad Rouhani, four-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu, and Full Tilt pro Chris Ferguson.
