{"id":10713,"date":"2018-07-25T12:59:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T12:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pokerscout.com\/?p=10713"},"modified":"2018-07-25T14:00:52","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T14:00:52","slug":"how-is-joe-cada-not-leading-the-wsop-player-of-the-year-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pokerscout.com\/how-is-joe-cada-not-leading-the-wsop-player-of-the-year-race\/","title":{"rendered":"How Is Joe Cada Not Leading The WSOP Player Of The Year Race?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of the 2018 World Series of Poker<\/strong> (WSOP<\/strong>), it looked like Joe Cada<\/strong> was the early favorite to win Player of the Year honors. After all, he started with a ninth-place showing in the $10,000 Super Turbo<\/strong> event before June was even underway. Then, the very next day, he won the $3,000 NLHE Shootout<\/strong>. He captured his third career WSOP bracelet and also pocketed a $226,000 payday.<\/p>\n

Then, as is often the case as the WSOP runs on into the summer, other contenders emerged. Players like John Hennigan<\/strong> and Eric Baldwin<\/strong> combined a bracelet win with a host of other cashes to climb to the top of the leaderboard. Unlike every WSOP dating back to 2000 though, there was no clear-cut two-time bracelet winner.<\/p>\n

After starting strong, Cada finished even stronger<\/span><\/h2>\n

In the final week of play though, we didn\u2019t just get one two-time winner, we got three. Shaun Deeb<\/strong> and Justin Bonomo<\/strong> both earned two, though Bonomo\u2019s One Drop victory did not factor into POY standings.<\/p>\n

And then there was Cada. Not only did he win two bracelets, he also finished fifth in the second-largest Main Event in history<\/strong>. Cada started with a bracelet, then ended with another in the massive-field Marathon event. Just two days removed from his $2.15 million Main event score, he picked up his fourth bracelet<\/strong> and over $660,000.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the game of poker is about winning and money. It is about beating tough competition too. Nonetheless, with cashes in both the Colossus and the Millionaire Maker, it is difficult not to be impressed by how many entries he outlasted. Across seven cashes, he bested 31,818 entries. That\u2019s an average field size of 4,545.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve laid out the case for Cada, but even without the numbers, it seems pretty clear: he was absolutely the WSOP Player of the Year<\/strong>. So, why then, is he third in the POY standings?<\/p>\n

New POY formula trying to address issues of the past<\/span><\/h2>\n

One has to commend the WSOP for never resting on its laurels when it comes to Player of the Year. The organization has frequently changed formulas. Both BLUFF Media<\/strong> and GPI<\/strong> operated the formula in the past. For the past two years, the WSOP has powered the formula in-house. BLUFF\u2019s major critique was it overvalued high buy-in events over large fields with smaller stakes. GPI was similarly criticized for undervaluing the marquee events like Colossus but massively overvaluing the Main Event.<\/p>\n

In 2017, the formula seemed to be deeply rooted in return on investment. As such, players like the eventual winner Chris Ferguson<\/strong> earned plenty of points for frequent cashing. Meanwhile, players with only a handful of cashes were too far back in the standings to contend. Case in point: David Bach<\/strong>. The only two-time bracelet winner of the summer finished the race 86th in the standings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To their credit, the WSOP continued to tinker and introduced an entirely new formula this year. It isn\u2019t something we have never seen before though. It is actually modeled after the points system the WSOP Circuit uses to determine which players qualify for the Global Poker Championship<\/strong> freeroll.<\/p>\n

Essentially there are four tiers of points:<\/p>\n