The World Poker Tour Tournament of Champions has reached its end, and the results were under reviews. This means that every player’s achievement for the previous year is taken into account and, according to WPT, Art Papazyan and Pete Chene are the two players who have the most points. They topped the leaderboards for the previous year and showed their supremacy in every aspect. One of the pretenders fo the best player was also Joe McKeehen. However, he managed to get eliminated at the Bobby Baldwin Classic, and this made Papazyan the ultimate WPT Player of the Year. The moment McKeehen lost his chance was when Darren Elias managed to beat him with what at first seemed like a sure-thing for McKeehen.
Another thing that stopped McKeehen from tying up with Papazyan was that he did not manage to win the first place at WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open, WPT Rolling Thunder, and Bobby Baldwin Classic. He finished on the fourth place in the Borgata tournament and the third in Rolling Thunder and Bobby Baldwin. Had he managed to be just one place in on of these three competitions, things would have been different.
Papazyan’s two victories at WPT Legends of Poker and WPT Maryland Live! were just enough for him to secure the first place and win the Player of the Year award. Being mostly a player who plays Poker online, Papazyan stated that chasing points from the tournaments had not been his goal at all. In fact, he stated that he had won that prestigious award on accident. Art was not aware that winning this title brings numerous benefits and said that he planned to continue competing the following year. These perks mainly include complimentary accommodation and ground transportation to Poker events where he decides to play the next year. Furthermore, he also won a $24,000 watch – Hublot Big Band Unico Limited Edition.
Pete Chen Topped WPT Asia-Pacific
Going back to 2017, Pete Chen managed to win a series of tournaments, including those held at WPT Beijing, WPT Korea, and WPT India. This was a firm basis which secured Chen, a Player of the Year reward. Furthermore, other tournaments that completed his dominance were also events at WPT Japan and WPT Sanya. Chen stated that he was happy but that the competition was not big. The Asia-Pacific competition scale was indeed not big. Nevertheless, Chen won several awards including $15,000 package for WPT events, complimentary accommodation and ground transportation for the desired WPT events.
Chen deserved this win as he is known as someone who puts a lot of effort and is present in more than 300 tournaments a year. Unlike Papazyan, Chen is very familiar with this type of awards and has already won a PokerStars Asia POY. He did not hesitate to express his motivation by claiming that he wanted to be something special at Poker. However, the future is uncertain for Chen as the future of the Poker in mainland China and the neighboring countries is uncertain as well.