At this year's WSOP Europe, the WSOP Player of the Year award has officially been awarded to six-time WSOP champion and former Full Tilt co-owner, Chris ‘Jesus' Ferguson.
Before the start of the WSOPE Main Event on November 7, there were only two players remaining with a chance of surpassing Ferguson, and they were John Racener and Ryan Hughes. Hughes got busted on Day 1b which left only Racener, who needed to garner 136 points to surpass Ferguson in the POY race. However, on Day 2, his chance slipped away.
This achievement of Ferguson will definitely infuriate many poker players and fans who strongly feel that he should not deserve, much less compete for such a prestigious honor bestowed in poker right after he chose to remain silent about his involvement in the collapse of Full Tilt which nearly cost his customers several hundred million dollars in embezzled player funds.
However, setting that aside, no one can deny that Ferguson's play over this summer and the past couple of weeks at the Kings Casino in Rozvadov, Czech Republic have definitely earned him the coveted title. In Las Vegas, alongside Racener, he made a whopping record 17 cashes, and this included 2 top four finishes in $10,000 Championship events, ending the series which lead to the POY race that earned him a free entrance to the €10,350 Main Event (though he busted on day 1b). He continued his winning streak at the WSOPE, further making 6 more cashes from the 11 events, including grabbing his 6th career WSOP bracelet in Event #7: €1,650 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better, and winning €39,289 cash.
Ferguson shall now join the likes of Jason Mercier, and two-time winner Daniel Negreanu as WSOP Player of the Year winner. Along with Greg Merson, he is the only winner to have also won the Main Event, which he won in 2000.
As the 2017 WSOP Player of the Year, Ferguson will then receive a free entry into the $10,000 WSOP Main Event in 2018. He will also have a banner of his image displayed at the Rio alongside his fellow POY winners through the history of WSOP.
Source:
http://www.wsop.com/2017/poy/
But at the end nothing you can do about this.
