Shaun Deeb held on by the length of a football to win the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Player of the Year award for the second time.
The race was never his to lose, even though he'd been atop the leaderboard for the past two weeks. It turned into a race for Benny Glaser, who had a memorable summer, to snatch away from Deeb, and he almost did.
Michael Mizrachi could only finish in third place despite having won the Main Event and the Poker Players Championship, the two most prestigious tournaments in poker. "The Grinder," who was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame on Wednesday, won the PPC and reached the Main Event final table (fifth place) in 2010 but lost out on Player of the Year to Frank Kassela.
The 2025 WSOP Player of the Year race was among the most thrilling ever. Glaser won three bracelets in June and appeared to be headed for a runaway title. But Deeb applied some pressure late in the month, and then overtook the lead with his only bracelet win of the summer on July 3 — Event #79: $100,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller — for a career-best $2,957,227.
The victory earned the New Yorker his seventh gold bracelet and fourth final table appearance of the summer. He'd tack on an additional one a few days later with a runner-up finish for $154,906 in Event #84: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em. Deeb, a future Poker Hall of Famer, finished in the top three in four events this summer.
He cashed 18 events during the 2025 WSOP, but the new POY scoring system put in place last year only counts a player's 10 best scores. That means eight of his cashes were irrelevant, and this is where the race to the finish became interesting.
Glaser, Martin Kabrhel, and Scott Bohlman had all fallen behind Deeb in early July. But Glaser still had an easier path to add points to his score because, despite three bracelets, he'd only racked up a handful of cashes.
With each additional cash, Glaser would add to his score. Deeb, on the other hand, would need deep runs to increase his lead by replacing weaker scores with higher scores. He was only able to replace one low score the rest of the way, but not by many points.
Glaser, however, picked up a handful of min-cashes to crack 10 cashes. The problem was that he struggled to get one last deep run to pull ahead of Deeb.
On the final day of the series, Glaser battled in Event #97: $1,500 The Closer, but busted in 114th place, about 70 spots shy of earning enough points to overtake the Player of the Year lead. He would take one last shot at it by max late registering Event #100: $1,000 Super Turbo, the final tournament of the series, but he didn't last long.
That meant Deeb, for the first time since 2018, officially locked up the 2025 WSOP Player of the Year award. Mizrachi cashed in 11 events, winning the two most prestigious tournaments. But he fell a bit short due to a lack of any other deep runs beyond his two bracelets. Glaser is the first player to win three bracelets in the same series without winning Player of the Year.
Deeb would finish the summer with 4,191.10 POY points, according to the WSOP site, whereas Glased ended with 4,153.66. Mizrachi was a close third at 3,804.96 points. The POY winner receives free entry into the 2026 WSOP Main Event, a trophy, and a banner inside the Horseshoe tournament area each summer.
Daniel Negreanu, the only other two-time WSOP Player of the Year (2004, 2013), and fellow Poker Hall of Famer Brian Rast were among those who finished in the top 10.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shaun Deeb | 4,191.10 |
| 2 | Benny Glaser | 4,153.66 |
| 3 | Michael Mizrachi | 3,804.96 |
| 4 | Martin Kabrhel | 3,639.41 |
| 5 | Scott Bohlman | 3,328.86 |
| 6 | Joao Vieira | 3,025.20 |
| 7 | Brian Rast | 3,006.66 |
| 8 | Daniel Negreanu | 2,972.05 |
| 9 | Klemens Roiter | 2,813.51 |
| 10 | Zdenek Zizka | 2,807.76 |
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