Champion Of The Year Award
To qualify for the “Phil Hellmuth” Champion of the Year (COTY) Award, you need to make it to the final at any U.S. tournament with at least a $2,000 buy-in with a minimum of 65 entries. In addition, all World Series of Poker events count, and all World Poker Tournament events count. Points will be awarded in order of finish-200, 180, 160, 140, 120, 100, 80, 60, and 40 points. The WSOP main event stands in a class alone and will have a multiplier of 3, the WPT $25,000 event will have a 2.5 multiplier, all other $10,000 events will be multiplied by 2, and the $5,000-$9,999 buy-in events will have a 1.5 multiplier.
If you want to win the Champion of the Year Award in any year, you will need to play against the best poker play card games in the world, in the biggest and most prestigious events, and finish at least at the final table (or in the “final four,” if you want to win the really big points). Special thank to Kenneth Popkin for managing the COTY Award and keeping it up to date with a spreadsheet.
What a sprint to the finish we witnessed in 2003. Going into the last qualifying event of the year-the Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic $10,000 buy-in Championship event-a total of 13 players were in the points to win the Champion of the Year Award. I controlled my own destiny, having the lead at 1,070 points, and believe me: I don’t have any problem with winning poker my own award! (However, I didn’t make it past day one.)
With 50 players left (we started with 310), Erik Seidel was in the best position to take the crown with 1,005 points, in addition, he had chips, and momentum was on his side. Erik had managed to finish seven card stud and then first in the previous two events he played in-the $2,500 limit Holdem poker games event on Thursday and Friday, and the $2,5oo pot-limit Omaha event on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, we began the four-day- long Championship event, and one of the chip leaders after day one was, not surprisingly, Erik. I believed in him, and I was going to bet on him to finish first or second in this last key event, but Erik himself told me on day three, “Don’t bet on me…” Uh, OK…
Chip Jett was in third place on the COTY list going into day three, and he needed an eighth-place or better finish to pass me, but he still had to worry about poker Seidel, Amir Vahedi (who needed first or second place to win the award), Daniel Negreanu (who needed first place), and Mel Judah (who needed first place).
So there I sat at the Bellagio on day three, watching all of these great players have a go at passing me up. Negreanu went out early, and Seidel was eliminated 19th. When Amir finished in 14th place, only three players had a chance to win the COTY: me, chip, and Mel. As time passed by, chip and Mel made the final table. Just one more place to go for Chip-and eight for Mel-but of course, they were both focused on the $1.1 million first-place prize. When one actually finishing eighth-to take the lead.
After Chip finished eighth, Mel Judah needed to finish in first place to win the COTY. About then, Mel asked me, “Phil, do international events count?”
I replied, “Only WPT 2003 international events.”
Mel answered, “That’s too bad, because I made three other big-money buy-in final tables this year. Nice job anyway, Mel, but they don’t count for the coty. With six players left in Bellagio’s $10,000 buy-in WPT event, we broke of for the day, and Mel Judah was still alive and kicking. We would have to wait for day four-the last qualifying event-to determine who would win the coty for 2003.
The next day, when Mel finished in sixth place, I was finally able to announce the winner: “Chip Jett wins Phil Hellmuth’s Champion of the Year Award in 2003!” Let’s give Chip Jett some praise: he made seven final tables in poker’s toughest and most prestigious events in 2003, and took home over $700,000 in prize money.
Other players who has a good chance to win the COTY this year were Phil Ivey (who led it most of 2003), Men “The master” Nguyen, Toto Leonidas (who made a late charge), Chris “Jesus” Ferguson (who had a terrific (WSOP), Howard Lederer, and T.J event wsop 2001. Cloutier. “One-word names” like Negreanu, Flack, Gus, Chan, and Devilfish are a few of the other top 20 finishers. The 20th-through 30th –place finishers include four World Champions (Huck, Carlos, Scotty, and Dan Harrington), Juanda (21st), and Alan Cunningham. By the way, John Duthie Juanda won the COTY in 2002. For a list of the top 100 finishers in 2003’s COTY, or the current standings, go to www.philhellmuth.com.
Look at the number of great players who made the top 30 in 2003! To me, it shows the amount of skill that it takes to play in the biggest events in poker each year. With the numbers of entries way up in all of the COTY events, we still have all of these great players near the top of the list bluff.