button in SafariIt's All Crushers Atop the WSOP Player of the Year Standings; Deeb Still Hanging in There
The WSOP Player of the Year race is being dominated by players you probably aren't too surprised to see at the top, while Shaun Deeb, the pre-series favorite, is still lurking.
Deeb came into the summer with a significant headstart after booking two runner-up finishes and a ninth-place score at the WSOP Europe in April. But he's only recorded two cashes this summer.
The good news for the reigning and two-time Player of the Year is he's made the most of those cashes, finishing second and fifth. Deeb, however, has dropped down a bit in the standings since the WSOP began on May 26, while some other crushers have moved into the top few spots.
Schulman Closing in on Foxen
Alex Foxen, who won a bracelet and has five final table appearances this summer, has been holding steady in the top spot on the WSOP Player of the Year standings for a while. But Nick Schulman would have overtaken the lead had he held onto his final table chip lead on Friday in the $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship.
Schulman ended up losing a heads-up match to Koji Fujimoto and had to settle for second place. That brought him up to 2,550 points and second place in the POY standings. Foxen leads the race with 2,720 points.
Josh Arieh, like Schulman, recently finished runner-up, in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. The 465 points he earned from that prestigious mixed games event catapulted the 2021 Player of the Year to third place with 2,457 points. Benny Glaser, who beat Arieh heads-up for the PPC bracelet, is right behind the top three spots with 2,407 points, while Eelis Parssinen rounds out the top five at 2,310 on account of winning two bracelets.
Deeb has some work to do to get back to the top of the leaderboard. But he remains within striking distance, sitting in eighth place with 2,019 points. This year's WSOP Player of the Year race, which includes results from WSOP Europe, WSOP Las Vegas, and WSOP Paradise, only counts a player's top 15 point scores in the standings.
Deeb has eight cashes thus far, six from WSOP Europe. He's only a couple final tables or a bracelet win away from leapfrogging from eighth to first place. That is, of course, assuming the players above him don't also go on a run.
