Poker Writer
Phil Hellmuth weighing in on Shaun Deeb’s controversial 2025 WSOP Player of the Year win has ratcheted up the tone of the debate. Deeb raised a few eyebrows by edging out Michael Mizrachi and Benny Glaser, both of whom made more headlines and won more bracelets during the series. Debate had remained muted until now, but Hellmuth’s wide audience and polarizing personality have belatedly made it a hot-button topic.
Following Deeb’s win, some fans and players argued that Mizrachi was the natural choice for Player of the Year as the only person ever to have won the Poker Player’s Championship and Main Event in the same year. A smaller number said it should have belonged to Glaser, who now holds the dubious honor of being the only player to have won three bracelets at the Series without also taking Player of the Year.
Deeb won only a single bracelet at the series, but racked up Player of the Year points through multiple final tables. He also skipped the Main Event to focus on more scorable events late in the series.
Hellmuth fanned the flames with a lengthy post on X, arguing that wins should count for more.
Folks, it is hard to win!! Does anyone remember who finished 2nd in the Masters (McIllroy won)? Let’s reward those that take home the gold medals, the gold bracelets.
I told@realkidpoker I would trade in my 14 2nd place finishes at WSOP for ONE gold bracelet! Winners win!
Hellmuth’s proposed solution is that the points for wins should increase with each consecutive win. He said a player should earn twice as many points for their second bracelet in a series and three times as many for a third, to ensure that a performance like Glaser’s would rise to the top.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the player who has won more bracelets than anyone thinks they should count for the most. The “Poker Brat” has 17 of them.
Hellmuth Makes it Personal
Hellmuth is far from alone in thinking that the formula could use some improvement. However, he made things personal in a video attached to his post, claiming without evidence that Deeb had exerted some influence on the design of the formula.
In one segment of the 3 minute video he says:
It just bums me out a little bit that Daniel (Negreanu) and Shaun are writing the rules for player of the year and nobody likes the result… why the **** does Shaun have any say at all in this? C’mon man what are we doing? I mean, he’s writing the rules and winning POY?
He later recanted the claim in a separate post.
Deeb Fires Back
Deeb had stayed out of the Player of the Year debate until that point. However, Hellmuth’s accusations provoked a response.
Deeb broke his silence on the matter in a long post of his own on X. Primarily, he wanted to set the record straight on the idea that he’d influenced the formula.
First off: I had zero involvement in the WSOP changing the POY formula. The shift from counting unlimited cashes to capping at 10 wasn’t my call — and it hurt me more than it helped. Phil himself admitted that.
He couldn’t resist making a retaliatory dig at Hellmuth at the end of his post, however:
And to Phil? Congrats — on spreading false info, trying to hijack Mizrachi’s Hall of Fame spotlight (shoutout Jared Bleznick it was his suggestion first), and once again proving that volume doesn’t equal accuracy.
Aside from providing the poker world with some juicy drama, the back-and-forth does raise some valid points.
Deeb’s view is that the WSOP Player of the Year race is a holistic assessment of a player’s work throughout the series, not just the “highlights,” as he put it. He feels his consistency over summer merits recognition: five final tables, including a win and two second-place finishes.
Hellmuth, on the other hand, thinks it’s not about money or final tables, but about bracelets.
Public opinion on the matter is split. Many commenters agreed with Hellmuth that there should be an emphasis on winning, as there is in other sports. Although Glaser won the most bracelets, the majority opinion still seems to be that Mizrachi should have been the winner based on having won the two most prestigious titles.
However, there was also strong minority support for Deeb’s case, that Player of the Year is about putting together a complete summer and showing up with big results in multiple events.
No matter what the formula is next year, this is likely to be a perennial debate without any real winner. Hellmuth did, at least, apologize to Deeb over the accusation that he personally had a say in the POY formula in a subsequent post on X.
