The disgraced Howard Lederer, who at the time was known as a formidable poker player, won the first player of the year award. Since then many other big names have won the WPT POY including Erick Lindgren (Season 2), GGPoker Ambassador Daniel Negreanu (Season 3), Jonathan Little (Season 6), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (Season 7), Anthony Zinno (Season 13), and Brian Altman (Season 18).