WSOP Player of the Year 2026: Standings, Points System and Full History

The WSOP Player of the Year is an annual consistency award. It goes to the player who accumulates the most points across eligible bracelet events throughout the World Series of Poker season.

The 2026 race marks the first time the award carries a $1,000,000 prize pool, with points counting across three festivals worldwide. The money has already changed the calculus: several players who typically skip festivals outside Vegas have committed to all three legs in 2026.

Alex Foxen leads the leaderboard on 3,283 points, even after his Main Event run ended in 263rd on Day 5. Defending champion two-time POY winner Shaun Deeb (2,818) exited the world championship in 15th, with those points still to be credited. Naoya Kihara holds second on 3,042 and Josh Arieh fourth on 2,733.

With seven bracelet events remaining in Las Vegas and WSOP Paradise still to come in December, the race is far from settled.

The table below mirrors the official WSOP leaderboard, combining WSOP Europe Prague (Mar 31 to Apr 12) with the Las Vegas leg now under way. In Vegas, 94 of the 100 bracelet events are POY-eligible after six non-open exclusions. The Main Event final nine are set, with seven bracelet events remaining.

Standings are updated weekly during the Las Vegas series and after each WSOP Paradise bracelet event.

For real-time updates, check the official WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard.

VIP-Grinders has covered every WSOP since 2013. This page is updated weekly during the series with standings, analysis and context on new bracelet winners.

Last updated: 14 July 2026.

Three bracelets on Monday, July 13 took the tally to 93, on the same night the Main Event final nine were confirmed.

Alex Foxen extended his lead to 3,283 points, with Naoya Kihara (3,042) holding second. Josh Reichard was the mover among the chasers, climbing to 2,574 to sit level with Michael Moncek in seventh.

Defending POY champion Shaun Deeb (2,818) saw his Main Event run end in 15th for $410,475. The points for that finish have not yet been credited, so his official total will rise once the WSOP processes the result.

Deeb wasted no time, registering for the $500 Summer Saver and the $25,000 H.O.R.S.E. High Roller within minutes of busting. He bagged 370,000 in the latter.

Up to three more bracelets could be decided on Tuesday, with the 6-Handed Championship, the Summer Saver and the PLO 6-Handed all playing finales.

With WSOP Paradise still to come in December, these standings remain early. The winner will not be confirmed until WSOP Paradise concludes on 18 December.

For daily bracelet coverage, see our WSOP 2026 results tracker.

The 2026 WSOP Player of the Year format is the most significant overhaul in the award’s 22-year history. Three changes define it: a global calendar, online exclusion, and a scoring cap.

Which Events Count: 3 Festivals, 94 Eligible in Vegas

Three festivals feed the 2026 leaderboard: WSOP Europe Prague (Mar 31 to Apr 12, 14 POY-eligible bracelets), WSOP Las Vegas (May 26 to Jul 15, 94 of 100 qualifying), and WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas (Dec 1 to 18).

Only open live bracelet events count. All online bracelet events on WSOP.com and GGPoker are excluded for the first time. Only a player’s top 15 scores count toward the final leaderboard, up from 10 in 2024 and 2025 and unlimited before that.

The following six non-open Vegas events are excluded from POY:

The 2026 Points Formula Explained

POY Points = C x ⁴·⁵√Buy-in x |ln(Rank Ratio)|¹·⁷

Where C = multiplier based on finishing position, Rank Ratio = final position / total entries, and ln = natural logarithm.

The official formula graphic from WSOP.com:

The C multiplier is the biggest lever in the formula. It rewards winners six times more than players who bust without cashing:

Rank Ratio equals Final Rank divided by Total Entries. The 4.5th root dampens the buy-in effect significantly: a $10,000 event generates roughly 1.7 times the base points of a $1,000 event, not 10 times.

The natural log component rewards deep runs disproportionately. A win scores several times more than a final table, which scores several times more than a min-cash.

The exact ratios vary by field size. The WSOP’s interactive calculator at wsop.com lets players test specific scenarios.

Tiebreakers: How Equal Positions and Multi-Cash Events Are Scored

Players eliminated in the same round (5th through 8th in a heads-up bracket, for example) receive equal points. The points for those positions are averaged across the tied places.

Multi-cash events like The Closer award POY points once per player, based on final overall finishing position. No specific tiebreaker protocol exists for equal point totals, but the continuous-variable formula makes exact ties near-impossible in practice.

Before 2026, the Player of the Year winner received a trophy, a personalised banner hung in the rafters at Paris Las Vegas, and a $10,000 Main Event entry. The total package was worth roughly $10,000 plus the prestige. That changed when the WSOP announced a $1M global prize pool for 2026.

The top-100 payout structure creates a genuine financial incentive for mid-volume grinders. A player who finishes 50th still earns a $5,000 package. Even 100th place receives a $2,500 Circuit Championship ticket.

The prize money has changed behaviour at the tables. Lower buy-in events are drawing deeper fields as players chase every possible POY point, not just bracelet glory.

The Player of the Year leaderboard features familiar names alongside first-time contenders. The Las Vegas leg and WSOP Paradise will reshape these standings significantly.

Alex Foxen (USA) leads the race on 3,283 points after six final tables, one bracelet and a deep Main Event run in the Las Vegas leg alone. His fourth career bracelet came in the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty ($594,246, 466 entries), where he eliminated six of his eight opponents at the final table.

His wife Kristen Foxen won the $25,000 High Roller for her sixth bracelet just one week earlier, making them the first married couple to both win bracelets in the same WSOP summer. Together they have cashed for over $3.3 million this series.

Foxen’s consistency across NLH and big-bet formats suits the top-15 scoring cap. His fifth-place finish in the $10,000 8-Game Mixed Championship showed he can compete across mixed-game disciplines too.

Naoya Kihara (Japan) sits second on 3,042 points after winning back-to-back $10,000 championships, the 2-7 Lowball Draw ($428,923) and Seven Card Stud ($301,970), in the same week. Only five players had ever done it before: Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Greg Merson, George Danzer and Jason Mercier.

His mixed-game schedule keeps generating points deep into the series, though Foxen’s latest gains have stretched the gap to 241. The $25,000 H.O.R.S.E. High Roller, now under way, is exactly the sort of event where he closes gaps.

Shaun Deeb (USA) sits third on 2,818 points after winning the $1,500 8-Game Mixed for his ninth bracelet and $181,625. The defending two-time champion (2018, 2025) now has nine bracelets and five consecutive top-six POY finishes from 2018 to 2023.

He came back from just 300,000 chips on Day 3 to defeat Dean Joe heads-up, ending a run of three runner-up finishes in 2026 bracelet events. His ninth bracelet ties Benny Glaser and Michael Mizrachi.

He turned 40 in March 2026, making him eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame for the first time. He has committed to all three festivals, and his Main Event run ended in 15th for $410,475, with those points still to be credited to his total.

POY isn’t about highlight reels.
Shaun Deeb, on X after the 2025 POY controversy

Deeb’s point was that consistency across a full schedule matters more than individual headline wins. His 2025 and 2026 campaigns both reflect that philosophy.

Jesse Lonis (USA) is the newest arrival in the top five on 2,674 points after finishing runner-up in the $3,000 T.O.R.S.E. for $160,862. The two-time bracelet winner entered that final table with around 40 percent of the chips in play.

It was his first T.O.R.S.E. event, and he played parts of the final day while multi-tabling online tournaments on his phone.

Marius Kudzmanas (Lithuania) dropped just outside the top 10 after winning the WSOPE Main Event (2,617 entries, first prize of EUR 2,000,000). It was his third career bracelet after two online wins in 2023 and 2024.

He is the first Lithuanian to win the WSOPE Main Event. Whether he plays a full Vegas and Paradise schedule remains unclear.

The other two-time champion is inaugural winner Daniel Negreanu (Canada, 2004 and 2013), who now holds eight bracelets after winning the $100,000 PLO High Roller for $2,257,718 during the current series. He has confirmed a 40-event schedule for Las Vegas. His mixed-game strength gives him entries in disciplines that most NLH specialists skip.

That volume is paying off. His eighth place in the $50,000 High Roller on July 11 lifted him to 2,665 points, though Jesse Lonis’s surge has since nudged him down to sixth.

Benny Glaser (UK) sits ninth on 2,554 after winning the $50,000 Poker Players Championship for his ninth career bracelet and $1,343,764. He is the most decorated European player in WSOP history.

His mixed-game range suits the top-15 scoring format and his PPC victory generated one of the largest single-event points hauls of the series.

All-time bracelet leader Phil Hellmuth sits outside the current top 10 after cashing 14th in the PPC ($109,459) and playing several Las Vegas events. He has finished runner-up in the POY race four times (2006, 2011, 2012, 2021) without ever winning.

Dark Horses From Prague

Several WSOPE Prague standouts enter Vegas with realistic shots at a top-15 finish if they play full summer schedules:

Three episodes reshaped how the WSOP calculates and administers the Player of the Year race. Each one led directly to formula changes.

The 2017 Chris Ferguson Controversy

Ferguson won POY six years after the Full Tilt Poker scandal. The DOJ filed a civil complaint in 2011 alleging Full Tilt operated as a Ponzi scheme that paid out $444M of customer funds to its directors.

Ferguson was never criminally charged. His case was dismissed on 19 February 2013 via a settlement forfeiting $2,350,000 with no admission of wrongdoing.

He recorded 23 cashes across the WSOP and WSOPE, won one bracelet, and earned $496,343. He ranked 279th on the money list but finished first in POY under the new ROI-style formula.

The community reaction was fierce, and the WSOP did not strip the title. Ferguson issued a brief video apology in May 2018.

Hellmuth’s Four Runner-Up Finishes

Phil Hellmuth has 17 bracelets but has never won POY. He has finished second four times, each under different circumstances.

In 2006, he was briefly declared the winner before the WSOP ruled that post-Main-Event tournaments did not count, handing the title to Jeff Madsen. In 2011, Ben Lamb’s third-place Main Event finish overtook him.

In 2012, Greg Merson’s Main Event win put him ahead after WSOPE. In 2021, Josh Arieh’s two PLO bracelets edged him out.

Hellmuth publicly criticised the POY format after the 2025 result, arguing that Mizrachi’s Main Event and PPC double should have earned the title over Deeb’s volume-based campaign.

The 2019 Scoring Error

Daniel Negreanu was declared the 2019 POY winner after WSOPE Rozvadov and posted a celebratory vlog. Four days later, a data-entry error in Online Event #68 was discovered. Negreanu had been credited with points for a cash that belonged to another player.

After correction, Robert Campbell was declared the rightful winner. Deeb finished third and later said that under the correct numbers, he would have won had he adjusted his strategy in the closing Colossus event. The episode led directly to tighter scoring oversight and, eventually, the cap-based system introduced in 2024.

The award has been given every year since 2004 except 2020, when the live WSOP was cancelled due to COVID-19. In 22 editions, only two players have won it twice.

The scoring formula has changed more than ten times. Greg Merson (2012) remains the only player to win both the Main Event and POY in the same summer.

All earnings figures below reflect POY-eligible events only and are sourced from the official WSOP historical table and verified tournament results on Hendon Mob.

No other poker award has been recalculated as often. The POY formula has passed through five different administrators since 2004, with each era bringing fundamental changes to how points are calculated.

The WSOP Player of the Year formula has changed more than ten times in 22 years. The 2026 system is the most significant structural overhaul since the award’s creation.

For profiles of past POY winners and other leading tournament players, see our poker player profiles.

For the full WSOP 2026 schedule, bracelet records and daily results coverage, see our full WSOP reference section.