The 2024 World Series of Poker at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas has been chock full of exciting moments. The most exciting, of course, was crowning the game’s new World Champion Wednesday. But another competition has been going on for the 2024 WSOP Player of the Year, which is already over due to the run of one of the best players in the game.

Tweaking the System

Throughout the eight-week run of the 2024 WSOP, players have been accumulating points toward earning the prize of Player of the Year. In past years, this would have entailed playing as many events as possible and racking up as many points as you could.

Last year’s Player of the Year, Ian Matakis, racked up 22 cashes— including six of them online—to earn the POY, but there were rumblings about this development.

Many in the poker world did not think that the POY should be awarded for a bulk of performance. Instead, there was a movement to put more of a premium on higher finishing efforts—especially wins—rather than simply eking your way into the money. This was the catalyst for changes in the 2024 tabulations that looked to rectify this situation.

2024 saw the new POY system introduced, which would only count the top ten finishes of a player. 

Instead of having every finish count toward the POY, only a player’s best performances would be part of the POY system. 

In addition, it limited the number of cashes that would count from the online events to a singular instance, severely limiting the ability of “online wizards” to perhaps steal the POY in that manner.

The changes to the 2024 system ensured that the players would have to be on the floor in Las Vegas and compete in the events. It also ensured that only the best finishes of these players would be considered, instead of racking up min-cashes and picking up points in that manner.

With these changes, the WSOP hoped that they would quell the uprising from the top pros in the game while trying to accurately chart who had done the best during the 2024 WSOP.

How Many Bracelets Do You Need?

Every year, Caesars and WSOP officials hope that the 2024 WSOP Main Event will influence what happens in the Player of the Year race. It is usually a foregone conclusion by the time the final table is determined, and the 2024 race is no different. But it was a piece of history that will also decide who takes home the 2024 WSOP Player of the Year award.

In the history of the WSOP, only six men had ever won three bracelets in a singular Series – “Puggy” Pearson (1973), Phil Hellmuth (1993), Ted Forrest (1993), Phil Ivey (2002), Jeff Lisandro (2009), and George Danzer (2014). 

There had been plenty of two-time winners in a singular Series since Danzer pulled off the feat, but no other player had gone on a run to catch a trio of bracelets until 2024.

At 39 years old, Scott Seiver is already getting a great deal of attention toward being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2025 (2024’s inductee is Finland’s Patrik Antonius). Seiver may have solidified that attention by becoming only the seventh man to have won three WSOP bracelets in one year. Seiver would win that trio of bracelets in a myriad of poker disciplines.

His first win in Event #10, the $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Eight or Better World Championship, demonstrated his skills in a split-pot format (there can be two winners in the hand, one who makes the best high hand and one who makes the best low hand).

Seiver would then step up in a larger field event, the $1,500 Razz tournament (Event #40), where the object is to make the worst hand rather than the best. Another World Championship would enter Seiver’s trophy case when he won Event #72, the $10,000 No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball Draw World Championship.

Seiver almost pulled off the unbelievable feat of winning four WSOP bracelets in one year. In the WSOP Online Event #24, Seiver would battle to a third-place finish, not that he would need the points in the POY race. In the end, Seiver would be the only player who picked up more than 4,000 points during the totality of the WSOP and since no one at the final table is within sight of him, he looks to be the 2024 World Series of Poker Player of the Year.

Here is how the Top Ten broke down for this year’s Series:

1.  Scott Seiver (USA), 4,064.42 points

2.  Jeremy Ausmus (USA), 3,686.6

3.  Chance Kornuth (USA), 3,374

4.  John Racener (USA), 3,137.59

5.  Chris Hunichen, 3,083.57

6.  Yuri Dzivielevski (Brazil), 2,922.98

7.  David Prociak (USA), 2,921.93

8.  Viktor Blom (Sweden), 2,882.58

9.  Calvin Anderson (USA), 2,780.37

10.  Bryce Yockey (USA), 2,704.48

For his work during the 2024 WSOP, Seiver will receive a free entry into next year’s Main Event, a trophy commemorating his WSOP Player of the Year victory, and a special banner will be hung in perpetuity in the halls of the WSOP at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. That banner will put him alongside such legends who have claimed the WSOP POY as Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb, Chris Ferguson, and the only two-time winner of the POY award, Daniel Negreanu.