Indiana native and current Florida resident Chad Eveslage has secured the World Poker Tour's 2022 Player of the Year (POY) honor for 2022 on the strength of four WPT cashes, two final tables, and a million-dollar triumph at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in October.
Eveslage has yet to be officially declared the 2022 POY by the World Poker Tour, but with no WPT events remaining in the 2022 calendar year, and barring some form of highly unlikely points miscalculation, the honor is his. Eveslage's winning total of 2,325 in WPT points-awarding events was just enough to hold off another Florida-based pro, Steve Buckner, who finished the year at 2,275.
Buckner had a chance to overtake Eveslage with a deep run in the WPT's final event of 2022, the $10,400 WPT World Championship main event at Wynn Las Vegas earlier this month. Buckner made the money in that main event, but busted in 319th place for an $18,450 cash and 125 POY points, or 50 too few POY points to overtake Eveslage.
Buckner, who logged runner-up finishes in two 2022 WPT main events, including to Eveslage at the Bellagio Five Diamond, led all WPT players with five POY points-earning results. Eveslage had four such cashes, along with Stephen Song, Josh Kay, and Mike Vanier.
Eliot Hudon's $4,136,000 payday for winning the WPT World Championship main made him the WPT's biggest winner on the year. Benny Glaser's runner-up finish to Hudon at the Wynn, worth $2,830,000, put Glaser second on the 2022 list. Eveslage's total WPT earnings for 2022 of $1,450,825 placed fifth overall on the WPT's 2022 earnings list, also falling behind the third- and fourth-place finishers at the Wynn main event, Jean-Claude Moussa ($2,095,000) and Adam Adler ($1,608,000).
Eveslage and Buckner were also two of the four players who made two televised WPT finals during 2022, joining Kay and Ray Qartomi in that regard.
The WPT's 2023 slate of main tour stops begins in April with WPT Rolling Thunder, to be held at the Thunder Valley Casino Resort, near Sacramento.
Featured image source: World Poker Tour
