After a thrilling race to the finish line, Yunkyu Song was crowned the 2024 World Poker Tour Player of the Year. A grueling 12 months at the felt saw him earn the coveted title of WPT Player of the Year. To find out how he did it and how the WPT Player of the Year award has developed over the years, we spoke to World Poker Tour CEO Adam Pliska.
![WPT CEO Adam Pliska](https://p4poker.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/world-poker-tours-adam-pliska-on-plans-for-wpt-player-of-the-year-award-wpt-prime-and-yunkyu-song.jpg)
The inspirational CEO of the World Poker tour, Adam Pliska, took time out to tells us how the WPT POY is getting better every year.
A New WPT Champion
“For Season 22, there was an added air of excitement to the race.”
This time a year ago, the poker world applauded the dominant 2023 WPT Player of the Year Bin Weng. After he won huge titles and was a racing certainty by the WPT World Championships, it wasn’t so much a race as a procession. This time around, however, things were much closer, after WPT Prime results were added to Main Tour finishes. This twist provided a thrilling sprint for the line where four players were all in contention by the last few nail-biting moments of WPT action in 2024.
“Bin did claim his WPT Player of the Year title in dominant fashion,” says Adam. “For Season 22, there was an added air of excitement to the race with a handful of potential contenders in attendance at the WPT World Championship festival at Wynn.”
It was a really close race to the end for the 2024 WPT Player of the Year, with Yunkyu Song being a first-time winner. The importance of new champions and developing talent is impossible to quantify to the WPT CEO.
“It was amazing to see Yunkyu nearly win WPT Rolling Thunder near the beginning of the year and then continue his travels to other WPT stops later in the year to find even more success,” Adam says. “The players are the lifeblood of the World Poker Tour and poker as a whole, so we are exceptionally dedicated to bringing in new players to the game.”
How to Become WPT Player of the Year
“WPT Prime events are full of some of the best undiscovered and up-and-coming poker talent in the world.”
So how does a player win the WPT Player of the Year race with the points system, and how has this changed over the years you’ve been in charge? It turns out this latest tweak to the structure of the award has been a huge success for players of all levels.
“In 2023 we revamped our POY scoring system to include both WPT Main Tour and WPT Prime events,” Adam says. “Yunkyu is the poster child for players aspiring to become champions as he played events on both tours.”
Eric Afriat, already a big winner in WPT events, came so close to winning POY in 2024 after leading the final table, falling just short. He’s a great example of someone who plays a lot of Main Events and Prime tournament on the WPT and is reaping the rewards.
“Eric has been with us for many years now. He is a great player and is tied for the second-most WPT championship titles with three,” Adam tells us. “This was the third season he has finished in the top five on the POY leaderboard. Placing third, Eric earned himself $5,000 in WPT Passports for the upcoming season so I’m sure we will see him back again making more successful runs.”
Yunkyu Song may not have won a Main Event on the tour in 2024 but he did take down the WPT Prime Playground Championship for $164,251. To us at Cardplayer Lifestyle, this demonstrates how difficult to win and important the Prime events really are.
“WPT Prime events are full of some of the best undiscovered and up-and-coming poker talent in the world,” Adam confirms. “They also serve as a fantastic entry point for players looking to test themselves while also still getting the WPT experience. Prime events typically have larger fields and making your way through one requires navigating that minefield deftly.”
![World Poker Tour's Yunkyu Song](https://p4poker.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/world-poker-tours-adam-pliska-on-plans-for-wpt-player-of-the-year-award-wpt-prime-and-yunkyu-song-1.jpg)
The 2024 WPT Player of the Year, Yunkyu Song.
The WPT World Championships and POY Goals
“The festival schedule at Wynn allows players the opportunity to enter both the WPT Prime Championship and the WPT World Championship.”
With so many new events taking place in poker – especially in the live arena – keeping any award that the tour presents relevant and important to players in terms of prestige is hard. Adam told us that when it comes to growing the prestige of the WPT Player of the Year award in future years to come, ClubWPT and ClubWPT Gold promotions are key.
“We’re always looking at ways to improve and refine the Player of the Year system and we know that giving players ways to qualify for WPT events will be a major piece of what ClubWPT Gold offers, as well as the continuation of qualification paths on ClubWPT,” he says.
READ MORE: Interview with ClubWPT Vice President Jeremy Clemons
With the WPT World Championship such a huge part of everyone’s year now, it seems likely to us that whoever wins in 2025 and beyond will need to finish the year strong in what has become a poker festival like no other.
“The festival schedule at Wynn allows players the opportunity to enter both the WPT Prime Championship and the WPT World Championship,” says Adam. “I do believe that there will often be potential for players to overtake the #1 spot each year come December!”
With the latest season of the World Poker Tour only just beginning, holding onto his crown might be some task for Yunkyu Song to carry out over the course of a packed schedule. Will he be able to defend his crown in 2025, or could a new poker hero emerge from the shadows in the coming year? Between the prestigious WPT Championship events and WPT Prime tournaments that are ever-growing, we can’t wait to find out who ends up as the WPT Season 23 Player of the Year!