This year’s World Series of Poker continues to deliver on the hype – the best players in the world are going after each other day after day on the felt, and for most of us, it has been a lot of fun to watch. It’s hard to imagine at this point that many players are having more fun than Sam Stein, who leads the Player of the Year race after winning the $3,000 PLO event to bring home $420K in prize money, and take a firm grip on the POY lead. Here’s a look at the top contenders as we draw ever closer to the Player’s Championship and the NLHE Main Event.
Sam Stein (1st place, 385.75 points): Stein has shown that early deep runs will catapult you up this board, and build your confidence at the same time. To be honest, he has been a wrecking ball on the tournament circuit for the last two years, but after finishing 3rd in the PLHE Championship, making a minor cash in a NLHE Shootout, and then winning his most recent PLO event, no one is walking around with as much swagger and confidence as Stein. The WSOP is more than halfway over, and Sam Stein boasts a 52 point lead in this race, which will be tough for anyone to overcome if he continues to play like this.
John Juanda (2nd place, 336 points): If anyone can run down Stein, it may well be Juanda, who backed up his Lowball title with a 6th place finish in the $2,500 8 Game event. Those two cashes kind of sum up the type of player Juanda is – sure, he can and does run deep in Hold Em events, but he’s so tough in the mixed games that it’s impossible to count him out of any event that he enters. It will take a couple of more solid tournaments by Juanda if he wants to catch Stein, but its something that a player like Juanda is very capable of doing.
Daniel Idema (8th place, 309.50 points): Idema is a lesser-known name on this list, and the bulk of his points have come from his title in the $10K LHE Event, but it’s the Final Table at that event that leads me to wonder if he has a couple more great runs left in reserve. He defeated a final table that included Barry Greenstein, Justin Smith, Isaac Haxton, and Nick Schulman. It was one of the toughest final tables yet in this edition of the WSOP, and Idema came out on top. Granted, no bracelet is easy to win these days, but this one was especially impressive, and it points to a player that is cresting at exactly the right time. Much like a horse who defeats great competition and then bounces back to win again strongly, our guess is that this won’t be the last we hear of Idema’s name at this year’s WSOP.
What about players that have disappointed for one reason or another? It’s tough in poker to call any player out for disappointing results. This is a swingy game with big ups and downs, but it’s still fair to look at a few names who have failed to deliver on the biggest of stages this year:
Daniel Negreanu (0 points): Before this WSOP, it was all about the fantasy poker drafts for self-proclaimed fantasy hockey guru Daniel Negreanu. I get it, its kind of cool to come up with little side games that you can follow during the World Series. The problem is, Negreanu has only managed one minor cash in this series, he hasn’t come within a sniff of a deep run, and it doesn’t look like he’s been able to translate his well-documented preparation routines for the WSOP into a serious run of poker results. That being said, he’s the kind of player that could show up any day now and pull a bracelet seemingly out the hat, but it doesn’t look likely at this point.
Layne Flack (271st Place, 59 points): For a 6 time bracelet winner, I am pretty sure that Flack is as disappointed as anyone with his 3 minor cashes thus far in the 2011 WSOP. He’s been a player who is easy to root for over the years, overcoming personal demons and other things on and off of the felt, and yet these results point to a player that for one reason or another is still waiting for a big breakthrough this summer. Flack may have a deep tournament run in him yet this summer given his all-around skill in several games, but his results to this point have been a bit of a downer.
Sorel Mizzi (376th Place, 45 points): I put Mizzi on this list simply to point how how competitive the WSOP really is. Here is a guy with three cashes (and 2 Top-20’s) in this year’s World Series, and all three have been in different disciplines of poker – LHE, NLHE, and 7 Card Stud. If I were him, I’d be more frustrated than disappointed really, because he has not played too poorly, but he has failed to make big moves at critical times. Mizzi is one of the better players out there without a WSOP bracelet to his name, and he may yet add one before this Series is over.
Thanks again for following all of our great WSOP Coverage at FlopTurnRiver, and Good Luck at the Tables!!