Scott Seiver’s dominating performance at this year’s World Series of Poker put his name in the record book at the 2024 Player of the Year. He only had to cash 17 times for $1,449,736 and add three more bracelets to the four he came with to hold off Micheal Rocco, Jeremy Ausmus and others like Phil Ivey, who finished tenth in points, for the honor.
Seiver, 39, pretty much went rail-to-rail after taking the lead in the Player of the Year race when he took his first of three bracelets away from the 2024 WSOP in the $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8OB Championship on June 4 — five days after the opening event ended. It was his fifth WSOP bracelet and was good for $426,744
After four cashes, he won bracelet number six in the $1,500 Razz event that brought in 547. He added another $141,374 to his giant pile of cashes — a bink away from $27 million, according to the Hendon Mob.
He repeated the pattern, cashing in four events before winning his third bracelet of the Series in the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship for $411,041. His seven WSOP bracelet puts him in a five-way tie for fifth-most with Daniel Negreanu, Men Nguyen, John Hennigan, and Bill Baxter.
He made two more final tables before his last cash of the WSOP in the $25,000 H.O.R.S.E event where he finished sixth for $131,719 for a total of 4,403.85 points. The WSOP tweaked the POY rules for this year. Players needed at least five cashes to qualify, and only too the points generated from their top ten results. Also, only the result from one online bracelet events could be counted.
Rocco worked his way up to the runner-up spot by cashing 12 times, winning his first bracelet, and finishing in the top 10 six times to earn 3,803.67 pts. Ausmus finished 117.07 points behind Rocco by cashing 24 times, and while he took a whopping $1,892,260 for finishing second in the $100,000 high roller event, he came away with no hardware.
Hall of Fame bound?
Seiver will be eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame for the first time in 2025, which requires a minimum age of 40 to be considered. Patrik Antonius was the 2024 inductee, and as a living member, he will get to vote for the players and industry captains who make next year’s shortlist.
There’s little doubt that Seiver will find his way onto the 2025 shortlist, and it will eventually be up to the living members to vote him in or not. He will have to beat the likes of those who made the shortlist this year, which includes Mike Matusow, long-time tournament director guru Matt Savage, Kathy Liebert, 2021 WSOP Player of the Year Josh Arieh, high stakes banger Ted Forrest, and others.
The WSOP’s choice to limit inducting one player per year into the Hall of Fame of course makes it much more difficult to get their picture hung on the wall of the poker room at Horseshoe Las Vegas, but it looks like it will be a three-way race between Arieh, Seiver, and Forrest for the honor, with Matusow right there with them.
Seiver’s 2024 run will certainly boost his odds and may even make his next’s year favorite.
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