Pepper Street Player of the Year

Beginning in 2014 the Player of the Year award will be fundamentally changed.

Here is the current system - read on afterwards to learn about the new system.

Every year we reward the player who earns the most points with a very special Player of the Year bracelet and the priceless bragging rights that go with it.

The points system is very simple, the higher you finish in a PSP tournament, the more points you get. Points are awarded based on the number of players in each tournament. For example - a tournament with 15 players would go as follows:

First place would receive 15 points, second would get 14 points, third 13, fourth 12 ... and so on and so on all the way down to the first person to bust out who would receive a single point.

For cash games, there will be zero points awarded for POY.

A whopping 10 bonus points will be awarded to any and all players who have perfect attendance at Pepper Street tournaments for the year.

I award big for showing up a lot, because I put a higher value on participation in my home game than just running good and/or running over the tables. Pepper Street will always be first and foremost about having fun - less so about the true nature of poker (busting people).

Obviously, I myself am not eligible for any attendance bonus points. In point of fact, I also am not be eligible for Player of the Year, but I will be keeping track of my points along with everyone else so I can see how I'm faring.

I will always have a link to the POY standings available on this website.

Wherever you are ranked, just remember that variance is very high in only a dozen tournaments or so. This is a very small sample size. If you bust out early often over the year, it doesn't necessarily mean you're not playing good poker.

*******

NEW FOR 2014:

The Player of the Year award has only been partially successful - while certainly exciting for the top 2 or 3 (or sometimes 4) players typically in contention about three or four months into the year - everyone else is pretty much mathematically out of it very early on.

Also, in five years we have had basically only 2 winners going back and forth (2013 was an exception and we had a different player tie for first 2 years ago).

So to make this contest WAY more exciting, the POY Bracelet will be transformed from a linear points system to a Tournament of Champions battle royale.  Here's how it will work.

A small amount will be deducted from each monthly tournament and set aside into a prize pool for a year ending Tournament of Champions freeroll.  Players will qualify for entry into this TOC by winning first place in a 2014 monthly event.

At the end of the TOC the last player with all the chips will win the bracelet.

In addition to making the race for a season champion MUCH more exciting, this system will also mean MUCH less work for me.  Instead of having to track the finish of every single player - all I have to remember is who won!  Sweet!

I realize that this will not really accurately reflect who the best player of the year is - it's more like a Champion of the Year rather than a Player of the Year - but I don't really see this as a bad thing.

One of the key components to why the game and economy of poker survives and thrives is that it everyone at the table legitimately has a shot to win in the short run.  I strongly believe that Pepper Street Poker will find even more success with this new system of rewarding the "best" player because that person could be any of us on any given night.  Everyone has a shot to make it - whereas a long and tedious linear point system rewards only the people who show up the most and have the best long term results.

I've come to realize that truly I don't think I do the player pool any favors by tracking every single result.  People who play for fun, and this includes me, are for sure happier and play more often when they are less concerned with the big picture.  A Champion of the Year system, rather than a Player of the Year system (even though the award will keep the name, as I'm not springing for a new plaque) will, in the end I believe, be much better for the game.