Was Steve O’Dwyer Robbed of EPT Player of the Year?

If you’re asking this author, the answer is yes. More than anything, Steve O’Dwyer fell victim to a formula that lacks common sense. O’Dwyer had more wins, more final tables, and far more earnings than the player who won the title, Mike “Timex” McDonald.

Following the completion of the 2016 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final, the 12th season of the European Poker Tour had come to an end. With that end came the completion of the EPT Player of the Year race, and it was McDonald narrowly edging out O’Dwyer by less than one point.

While many of those paying attention got lost in the excitement surrounding the down-to-the-wire rack, the thought of the two players fighting neck and neck until the end was a little bit of a surprise to me. Could someone really challenge O’Dwyer given that he won two super high rollers, won a €10,200 tournament, made seven final tables, and won over $2.7 million? If that’s not an obliteration of Season 12, what is?

According to the scoring system, which was powered by the Global Poker Index, McDonald was the winner thanks to a seventh-place finish in the final event at the EPT Grand Final, the €10,200 Six-Max No-Limit Hold’em Turbo. For this finish, McDonald scored 243.20 points, or 11.86 points more than O’Dwyer scored for taking ninth in the €50,000 Super High Roller. Yes, McDonald did finish two places higher in an event with a couple more entries, but O’Dwyer’s buy-in was five times that of McDonald’s. The thing is, the buy-ins are capped at $20,000 for the GPI scoring system.

Let’s have a look at the results from the two players.

Mike …

continue reading in source www.pokernews.com