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Josh Arieh took the prestigious World Series of Poker Player of the Year title yesterday as a dramatic finish to the leaderboard saw Phil Hellmuth narrowly miss out on a last gasp victory that would have seen him overtake his rival, although he was among the first to congratulate Arieh… Congrats @golferjosh on winning @WSOP “Player of the Year,” you won two bracelets, made several final tables and CRUSHED it. If I had to finish second in POY, I’m happy that it was to a class guy, a nice guy, and a great player #POSITIVITY pic.twitter.com/UWLvhe62oD — phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) November 23, 2021 The leaderboard race is always a hotly-anticipated, fiercely-contested and, occasionally, contentious part of the WSOP, and this year was no exception.
Three weeks ago, it was the “Poker Brat” version of Hellmuth who was complaining about the Player of the Year set-up, tweeting: “Is @WSOP “Player of the Year” losing its luster? POY has never been about “Cashes and min-cashes,” this is absurd!” Big Phil continued: “It’s about final tables and wins. Deeb has two final tables (1st, 5th) and roughly same points as Jake (5th, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 7th) and me (6th, 5th, 4th, 2nd, 1st). Another player has one Final Table (3rd in online tourn) and 2,000 pts! Who cares about 10th- and 14th- and 300th place?!? Who wrote @WSOP POY 2021 rules? It’s not right. POY isn’t about cashes! I’m calling on WSOP to make it right in 2022. We need new voices to be heard…” Over the intervening weeks, the complexion of the race changed entirely as Arieh surged to the top of the leaderboard, doubling his gold bracelet total to four with wins in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha and the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better.
Those were Arieh’s first bracelets since 2005, with his first coming way back in 1999, and it put him in pole position as the 2021 Series drew to an exciting finish.
Arieh and Hellmuth both made the final table of event 84, the $50k PLO High Roller – a star-studded bracelet […]
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