European Poker Tour changes POY and Awards points system

During Season 6 of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour, EPT officials announced the creation of seven poker awards that would be given out to the tour’s top performing players, including the coveted Player of the Year award. In addition to a trophy, each Season 7 award winner will receive a prize package for the first EPT poker tournament of the Season 8.

After some player feedback -which is a nice way of saying complaints-PokerStars decided to tweak the points system they put in place during Season 6. As Neil Johnson, EPT event host and player liaison, said: “Because the system was new, obviously there were going to be tweaks to make it fair for everyone… There is some kind of dissatisfaction with every system out there… We picked one that was best for the EPT.”

Points are awarded for both Championship Events and Preliminary Events, but unlike last year the field size will play a role in the number of points awarded -the buy-in amount is still not a factor so long as the Championship Tournament crosses the €1,000 buy-in threshold. During Season 6 players were awarded the same number of points for winning a Championship Event regardless of the size of the field; this has been changed for Season 7 to the following:

• Players will receive 1,200 points for winning an event with over 1,000 entrants
• Players will receive 1,000 points for winning an event with between 500 and 1,000 entrants
• Players will receive 800 points for winning an event with fewer than 500 entrants

Preliminary Events are now weighted in a similar manner as well: Winning an event with 16-40 players will earn a player 400 points; winning an event with 40-250 players will earn a player 500 points; and winning an event with over 250 players is worth 600 points. Events that draw fewer than 16 players will not be counted in the EPT Awards ranking system.

The Seven Awards that will be handed out by the EPT include

• EPT Player of the Year
• EPT Omaha Player of the Year
• EPT Mixed Games Player of the Year
• EPT Heads-Up Player of the Year
• Best EPT Online Qualifier of the Year
• Best EPT Country Award
• EPT Players Choice of the Year (voted by players)
• Best EPT Achievement of the Year (voted by players)

Personally I love the addition of the more Awards, since it puts poker more in line with sports like Baseball, Basketball, and so on, which will only help poker’s credibility in the long-run, and I fully expect the other poker tours’ to follow the EPT’s lead and create their own Poker Awards. One award I would like to see added in the future is a Rookie of the Year Award.