2020 Brings New Life to WPA Player of the Year Program

WPA launched the Player of the Year Program in 2019 allowing for ladies events to be featured with their own leaderboard point system which results in a Player of the Year Award.  2019 saw industry support with an amazing 65 known ladies events in North America and many additional events worldwide exclusively for women players. (We didn’t have a program in place for international events to be included for 2019, but we do for 2020!)  

In 2019, WPA POY had over 700 individual runners on the leaderboard with Ruth Hall of Round Rock Texas emerging as our 2019 WPA Player of the Year with 220 points. She had a phenomenal season during ladies poker week and did well in other events around the country to earn her spot.  Ruth was awarded her 2019 WPA POY Ring at the WPA Virtual Ladies Week Excellence Awards Gala held in June 2020. She amassed 35 points over the next runner in 2nd place, Kristi Garcia. Top Ten are as follows: 1st – Ruth Hall 220, 2nd – Kristi Garcia 185, 3rd – Melisa Singh 175, 4th – Pamela Belote 150, 5th – Alida Veliu 140, 6th – Debra Driskill 110, 7th – Terri Breer 102.5, 8th – Paula Hofmeister 100, 9th – Lorraine Widener 92.5 and 10th Marsha Adams 90.

This “Top 10” looks slightly different than the Top Ten announced at Gala time. Fortunately, WPA member Maureen Bloechlinger informed us of a few possible point corrections or omissions on the leaderboard. After investigating and auditing the system for a third time, we discovered in fact, there was a slight error. Some events didn’t qualify because of the number of players didn’t exceed 40 entries, no data available and others had some event results data entry issues. The good news? All has been corrected, all parties have been informed and we’re re-playing the TOC Player of the Year Freeroll to include the three new members of the Top Ten.  All members are invited to watch online when the new Freeroll is scheduled.

Ahhh, 2020… so many challenges in the world (and poker) with the global pandemic. With casino closures and stay at home orders, poker came to a screeching halt.  Now, poker is slowly emerging, but it looks a lot different.  When will festivals resume again? It’s anyone’s guess.  Therefore, WPA has chosen to use this time to make enhancements to the POY System. Some features include:

• Combine results from 2020 and 2021 for our next Player of the Year race
  This is for both North America and International Races
• Simplify the Points Calculations
  New point system calculates in rounded numbers and awards points based on tierd buy in amounts
• Establish a weekly online POY publication of standings
  A very elaborate system has been created and allows members to view results by event and player

For North America: 
All qualifying events in Canada, United States and Mexico are in the North America WPA Player of the Year

Outside of North America:
Since travel to many countries holds potential issues which impact the POY Standings, it’s been determined to host WPA International Player of the Year with a Tournament of Champions online event. 

All winners from every ladies event outside of North America are invited to compete in an online WPA International Player of the Year Freeroll event.  The winner of this event is awarded the title of WPA International Player of the Year. 

A very special acknowledgement to our Volunteer Actuary – Tiffany Norman, FSA, CERA, MAAA, for her assistance in the creation of the calculation program for WPA POY going forward. We couldn’t have done it without her! 

WPA is an all volunteer organization.  That being said, we have assumed the responsibility of tackling a very complex POY System and do our best to assure its accuracy and integrity.  If anyone discovers errors, please bring it to our attention so we can remedy the situation as quickly as possible.  With the new system placed online, our goal is to help streamline the checks and balances and have full transparency of the program. Players can keep track of their own points and contact WPA at poy@wpa.poker with any questions, corrections or concerns and we’ll do our best to assist. 

Congratulations to all our top finishers for 2019 and we are looking forward to seeing who emerges at the top for 2021! 

For details on the 2020 & 2021 WPA Player of the Year, CLICK HERE.

 To view 2019 WPA North America Player of the Year by Event Listings and Results, CLICK HERE.

To view the 2019 WPA Complete Schedule and Player Cumulative Points, CLICK HERE.