The 2017 Player of the Year competition is in full swing as the World Series of Poker is set to offer more than $20,000 in prizes to the top finishers of the race. Every year, the WSOP keeps track of poker player’s finishes in certain events and awards points to them based on their game play in WSOP and WSOPE events. This year, King’s Casino Rozvadov is the sponsor and a 2018 WSOP Main Event seat is up for grabs by the winner of the competition.

The Player of the Year race will take into account any open bracelet event taking place this year. Included in the mix will be 71 tournaments that took place in Las Vegas as well as World Series of Poker Europe events taking place in Rozvadov, Czech Republic.

The player who finishes at the top of the leaderboard will be rewarded handsomely. A free tournament entry will be provided to the WSOP Main Event 2018 which has a value of $10,000. During the competition, only open events apply, so such tournaments as the Global Casino Championship, Seniors or Ladies events do not count towards the rankings.

Last year’s WSOP POY title went to Jason Mercier, a poker pro who won two WSOP bracelets during that year, made it to 4 final tables and earned 11 cashouts. This year, the race is pretty close with Chris Ferguson as the leader of the 2017 WSOP POY race; with 1,046.56 points, Ferguson has a nice lead. In second place currently is Ryan Hughes with 961.23 points and not far behind is John Racener with 956.72 points.

The 2017 WSOP Europe is still in full swing, having started on October 19th and running until November 10th, so players still have plenty of time to compete for points in the Player of the Year race. This week, a high roller event is on the schedule as well as the Main Event. It will be interesting to see who has the lead once the WSOPE is complete!