Daniel Negreanu wins the WSOP Player of the Year race!

Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu today won the World Series of Poker Player of the Year title becoming the first person to win the accolade twice. Negreanu started the day behind Matt Ashton on the POY leader board but had calculated that a top eight finish would see him clear the British mixed game specialist.

Negreanu's had an incredible year: EPT9 Grand Final

There was the chance that November Niner Marc-Etienne McLaughlin was still in the among the final 13 and should he have gone deep and won the Main Event then he could have pipped Negreanu to the title. You say that's improbable but something similar happened last year when Phil Hellmuth cashed in four WSOPE events, including a win in the WSOPE Main Event, to make a late dash for it leaving Greg Merson needing to win the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, which he did. This year's added drama was nixed when McLaughlin bust before the money leaving the glory run in Negreanu's hands. It didn't take much longer.

Joni Jouhkimainen's bust out in 9th (€50,400) sealed the deal topping off an incredible year for Negreanu, which almost saw him complete his Triple Crown.

WSOP Player of the Year
(Bracelets, final tables)
2004: Daniel Negreanu (1, 5) $346,280
2005: Allen Cunningham (1, 4) $1,007,115
2006: Jeff Madsen (2, 4) $1,467,852
2007: Tom Schneider (2, 3) $416,829
2008: Erick Lindgren (1, 3) $1,348,528
2009: Jeff Lisandro (3, 4) $807,521
2010: Frank Kassela (2, 3) $1,255,314
2011: Ben Lamb (1, 4) $5,352,970
2012: Greg Merson (2, 2) $9,785,354
2013: Daniel Negreanu (1, 3) $1,256,399*

*Stats do not include the last event (WSOPE €25k High Roller)

Negreanu has cashed in nine events WSOP events this year for $1,256,399 already (that includes his WSOP APAC win and the WSOPE)

The congratulations came rolling in, and here's a couple of them:

And there was a nice show of class from Ashton:

At the time of writing Negreanu was fourth of seven remaining players with €63,500 locked up and still in with a shot at €725,000 and his sixth bracelet. Will keep you updated.

DNegs on his way to the EPT Vienna final table in 2010

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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