2003 Poker Champion of the Year Wrap-Up

Chip Jett is the Man in 2003!

What an ending we witnessed this year! Going into the last qualifying event of the year-the Bellagio's Five Diamond World Poker Tour (WPT) $10,000 buy-in Championship event-a total of 13 players could win the "Champion of the Year" award (COTY). I controlled my own destiny with the lead at 1070 points, and believe me; I don't have any problem with winning my own award! (However, I didn't make it past day 1.)

With 50 players left (we started with 310), Erik Seidel now controlled his own destiny with 1005 points; plus he had chips, and momentum on his side. You see Erik managed to finish 7th followed by a 1st in the previous two events he played in-Thurs./Fri. $2,500 limit Hold'em (7th), and Sat./Sun. $2,500 pot limit Omaha (1st). On Monday we began the four day long Championship event, and one of the chip leaders after day 1 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 3, "Don't bet on me." Uh, OK.

Chip Jett was in third place on the COTY list going into day 3, and he needed an eighth place or better finish to pass me, but he still had to worry about Seidel (who controlled his own destiny), Amir Vahedi (who needed 1st or 2nd), Daniel Negreanu (who needed 1st), and Mel Judah, (who needed 1st place to win the award).

So there I sat at the Bellagio on day 3, watching all of these great players have a go at passing me up. Negreanu went out early, and after Seidel was eliminated 19th, I announced to the large audience that Chip needed eighth or better to pass me. With Seidel gone, Chip now controlled his own destiny.

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 8 for Mel--but of course, they were both focused on the 1.1 million first place prize. When one more player was eliminated, Chip did it! He made the final eight-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 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 the Bellagio's $10,000 buy-in WPT event, we broke for the day, and Mel Judah was still alive and kicking. We would have to wait for day 4-the last day of the last qualifying event--to determine who would win the COTY for 2003. It would be Chip or Mel, but Mel needed a first place finish to pass Chip.

The next day, when Mel finished in sixth place, I was finally able to announce the winner, thusly, "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!

Chip made final tables in the COTY events all year long. In fact, he won the first qualifying event of the year on Jan. 24th-the $2,000 buy-in no limit Hold'em event in Tunica for $129,000. His second finish was a second place for $176,000 on the Party Poker II Cruise on March 8th. His third and fourth finishes were a 7th and 9th in the World Series of Poker's H.O.R.S.E and Omaha 8/b events in April/May. His fifth finish was a win in the California State Poker Championships on June 21st for $215,000. His sixth COTY tournament finish was in the Bike's WPT $5,000 buy-in event on Sept. 3rd; a fourth place finish good for $100,000. Finally, Chip Finished eighth for $58,000 in the WPT Bellagio event mentioned above on Dec. 18th.

Wow! For those counting up prize money at home, that's $688,000 for 2003, go Chip, go Chip! By the way, he also got there in Feb. (LA Poker Classic) for $48,000, and Sept. 24th (Tropicana win) for $43,000 in events that didn't qualify for the COTY.

Other players that had a good chance to win the COTY this year were Phil Ivey (who lead it most of the year), Men "the Master" Nguyen, Toto Leonidas (who made a late charge), Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (who had a terrific WSOP), Howard Lederer, and TJ Cloutier. "One word names" Negreanu, Flack, Gus, Chan, and Devilfish are a few of the other top 20 finishers. The 20th through 30th place finishers include 4 World Champions (Huck, Carlos, Scotty, and Dan Harrington), Juanda (21st), and Alan Cunningham. By the way, John Juanda won the COTY in 2002. For a list of the top 100 finishers in this years COTY go to philhellmuth.com.

Look at the number of great players that made the top 30 this year! To me it shows the amount of skill that it takes 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 at the top of the list. This shows that the players have fought hard for structures that give us time to "work" our chips in these COTY events.

Top 30 Point Leaders (updated 12/22/03)
Rank	Name	Score	# of finishes
1	Chip Jett	1090	7
2	Phil Hellmuth	1070	6
3	Erik Seidel	1005	6
4	Phil Ivey	980	5
5	Men Nguyen	920	5
6	Mel Judah	900	6
7	Toto Leonidas	870	5
8	Chris Ferguson	840	6
9	Amir Vahedi	760	4
10	Howard Lederer	740	4
11	T.J. Cloutier	685	6
12	Ron Rose	680	5
13	Daniel Negreanu	675	5
14	Layne Flack	660	4
15	Gus Hansen	640	2
16	Paul Phillips	640	2
17	Brian Haveson	620	3
18	Johnny Chan	600	2
19	Christopher Moneymaker	600	1
20	David "Devil Fish" Ulliott	585	4
21	John Juanda	570	4
22	Mohamed Ibrahim	520	2
23	Huck Seed	515	6
24	Paul Testud	510	4
25	Hoyt Corkins	500	2
26	Allen Cunningham	500	3
27	Carlos Mortensen	490	3
28	Scotty Nguyen	480	5
29	Dan Harrington	480	2
30	Ihsan "Sam" Farha	480	1

For next year the same criteria will be in place, all poker tournaments in the USA over $2,000 buy-in with at least 65 players entries will count. In addition, all World Series of Poker events count, and all WPT events count. 200, 180, 160, 140, 120 100, 80, 60, and 40 points will be awarded in order of finish. The WSOP main event stands in a class alone and will have a multiplier of 3, the WPT 25K event will have a 2.5 multiplier, all other 10K events will be multiplied by 2, and the 5K events up to $9,999 will have a 1.5 multiplier.

If you want to win the "Champion of the Year" award in 2004, you will need to play against the best poker players in the world, in the biggest and most prestigious events, and finish at least at the final table (or "final four" if you want to win the really big points). Special thanks to Kenneth Popkin for managing the COTY award and keeping it up to date with a spreadsheet--he did it all for three autographed copies of my book "Play Poker like the Pros." Congratulations to Chip Jett, the 2003 "Champion of the Year;" what a wonderful year you had Chip!

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