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John Juanda and Frank Kassela are tied at the top of the leaderboard with 225 points and Juanda has incredibly got there without winning a bracelet, courtesy of making four World Series final tables in 2010.

“[If I win Player of The Year] … it will make me feel a bit better about not winning a bracelet. But every year I go without a bracelet, it’s disappointing,” said Juanda.

Kassela on the other hand has stormed to the top of the Player of the Year rankings on the back of victories in the k Stud and .5k Razz and is only too aware of how tight it is at the top.

“I’ve been playing in a ton of events since I won that last one, just because I knew I had a decent chance at Player of the Year,” said Kassela following his second bracelet win.

“It’s going to be close.”

Neither player can rest on his laurels though. There are a group of players bunched just behind who can overtake them in a single bound should they win a bracelet.

Here are the current standings:

Player Name
 Points
 Bracelets
 Cashes

John Juanda
 225 pts
 0
 5

Frank Kassela
 225 pts
2
4

Vladimir Schemelev
210 pts
0
4

Dan Heimiller
200 pts
0
6

Michael Mizrachi
 190 pts
1
4

Men Nguyen
180 pts
1
3

Richard Ashby
180 pts
1
3

Jeffrey Papola
180 pts
1
3

James Dempsey
180 pts
1
3

Allen Kessler
175 pts
0
8

David Chiu
170 pts
0
4

David Baker
170 pts
1
4

With just a few events left on the 2010 WSOP schedule, it’s too tight to call a Player of the Year winner and the final result may yet hinge on the Main Event outcome in November.

For the latest on how the Player of the Year race is panning out as well as other news, blogs and videos from the World Series, click through to PokerListings’ dedicated WSOP 2010 section.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 4:48 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.