The World Series of Poker and the Global Poker Index announced in May that they had inked a deal for the latter to tabulate, power, and sponsor the WSOP Player of the Year ranking.
The GPI WSOP Player of the Year Award, as it is to be called from now on, is to be given to the player who has performed best over the course of all 74 official WSOP bracelet events. This year, the WSOP, which is currently taking place at Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel and Casino and is to run through July 14, will feature a total of 64 events. The remaining 10 events will take place during the WSOP Europe, which is scheduled to kick off on October 8 and will continue up to October 24. Spielbank Berlin in the capital of Germany will play host to the prestigious tournament.
The 2015 WSOP Player of the Year will be announced after the WSOP Europe is completed or even during the WSOP Main Event Final Table, which is to take place in November. The winner will receive a specially designed trophy at a ceremony during that concluding stage of the annual WSOP.
The prestigious award will be given to the player who manages to collect the most points over the course of all 74 events. The points will be calculated by means of the exclusive GPI formula. In other words, the points earned will be based on the type of events the player has entered, the buy-in fees for those, and the places he has taken.
The 46th edition of the WSOP is already taking place in Las Vegas with a total of 15 events marked as completed and therefore, 15 bracelets collected by their owners. According to the latest update, the 2015 GPI WSOP Player of the Year ranking is currently topped by Pennsylvania-based poker pro Paul Volpe.
The player is no stranger to the WSOP stage, as he has cashed in a total of 22 WSOP events and has collected $1,174,625 in those over the course of the past 6 years.
Last year, Volpe won his first and only WSOP bracelet for topping the field of a $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball event. It seems that this year, the player is striving to collect another and why not more than one of the coveted pieces of jewelry. Volpe has cashed in 3 events since the beginning of the 2015 WSOP and has scored a total of 1053.69 points to top the GPI WSOP Player of the Year ranking.
First, he finished 12th in the 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) Championship (Event #7) for $22,110 and 218.61 points. Next, he took 2nd place in the No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship (Event #10) to scoop $206,620 of the prize pool and 423.03 points. Only two days ago, Volpe finished 2nd in the Pot-Limit Hold’em Championship (Event #15) and received $197,048 and 412.05 points.
Apart from his WSOP appearances, the player has been spotted at various WPT, EPT, and other prestigious events over the past several years. Up to now, his live career earnings amount to $3,758,760. He collected his biggest live cash back in 2013, when he took 2nd place in the WPT $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship for $651,170.
Volpe is also a prolific online poker player. He can be seen at PokerStars tables under the screen name paulgees81 quite frequently. Up to date, he has collected a total of $5,152,372 in online earnings.
