In the middle of the 2022 World Series of Poker, Daniel Zack is named Player of the Year after winning a pair of gold bracelets. [Image: PokerGO.com]
Daniel Zack leads the WSOP POY race
The 2022 World Series of Poker has reached the halfway point. Every day now, there are several tournaments taking place simultaneously in both Paris and Bally’s Las Vegas. Some are just getting started, some are getting close to money, and some are giving away their bracelets. There’s a lot more to discuss at the WSOP in one article, so let’s take a quick look at some of the most interesting stories of the past week.
There’s still a long way to go, but the halfway mark is a natural point to check the 2022 WSOP Player of the Year rankings, led by Daniel Zack. If he had stopped playing now, Zack would have already had a massive streak. On Monday, Zack became the first double bracelet winner of the year, finishing in event #40: the $10,000 Hi-Lo 8 Seven-Card Tournament or better. A week and a half ago, he took home event #15: $10,000 Omaha High Low 8 or better championship.
The only player in the 2022 WSOP with more than 3000 points
With four more cash chests to date, including third place in Event #31: $10,000 for the 2-7 Three-Draw Lowball Tournament, Daniel Zack won $914,547 in the 2022 WSOP. He is the only player in the The 2022 WSOP race with over 3,000 points, and sitting on top of the leaderboard with a score of 3,041.26. His closest rival at the moment is Daniel Weinmann, with a score of 2,521.93.
The Poker Hall of Fame Finalists Announced
After a two-week public nomination period, the World Series of Poker announced the ten finalists for the Poker Hall of Fame on Wednesday.
There are three new contestants this year: Kathy Lippert, Brian Rast, and Josh Arieh, the 2021 WSOP MVP.
Three of the finalists (well, four, because one of them is a tag team) are not players. Many believe that famed tournament director Matt Savage is the most deserving of Hall’s honors. Isai Scheinberg, founder of PokerStars, is arguably the most important person in the growth of the game of poker in the past two decades, but the legal problems caused by Black Friday may have hurt his chances. The longtime WSOP announcer duo, Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, have meant much of the game’s popularity on television.
The 32 living Hall of Fame members will cast their votes to determine who will make up the 2022 class. Each HOFer has ten votes, which they can allocate in any way they choose; All ten can go to one person, and each finalist can have one vote or any combination in between.
Hall of Famers often stick to voting for fellow players. The other four nominees are: Mike “The Mouth Matusow”, the late Layne Flack, who passed away last year, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi.
All the finalists deserve a lot; It will be interesting to see how the votes turn out.
Where did the elephant chips go?
There is always some kind of controversy in the World Series of Poker and last weekend we had a quarrel, although everything went well. In the end, no harm or no harm.
During a break in Event #38: The $10,000 21-Player No Limit Singles Draw, 16-time WSOP winner Phil Hellmuth left his chips in a rack in his seat. The tournament staff united the four tables into three, and when he returned, Helmuth saw that not only had his chips gone, but they had somehow ended up in the possession of defending champion Farzad Bunyadi.
Someone had to find out how many chips Helmuth had
Bonyadi wasn’t wrong – Hellmuth admitted in an interview with PokerNews that it was a complete accident – but nonetheless, why it happened was a mystery and someone had to figure out how many chips Hellmuth had so that the stack could be put together.
Hellmuth estimated he had over 130,000 chips, and he was surely right. WSOP officials reviewed the surveillance footage and determined Hellmuth had 135,000 chips before the break. These chips are removed from the Bonyadi pile and returned to Hellmuth. And that was, everyone was satisfied with the decision.
Phil Hellmuth ended up in ninth, and just lost his record-breaking 17th bracelet. Pedro Brumfman won the tournament for the first WSOP win of his career.
