Yesterday, Bluff Magazine revealed the winners of its sixth annual Reader’s Choice Awards, a list that featured several repeat winners along with a bevy of new honorees. The nominees were announced in the first week of December and Bluff opened the voting to the poker community via the internet. The polls for the 14 categories closed on January 16th.
“The Bluff Reader’s Choice Awards continue to grow each year,” Bluff Magazine Editor-in-Chief Lance Bradley commented in a press release. “In total, nearly 9,500 poker fans took the time to have their voice heard. Next year, we’re aiming for even more votes.”
Although there were also 14 categories for 2009, a few of them were changed for 2010. Favorite Poker Personality was narrowed to Favorite Poker Announcer, Favorite Poker Podcast was changed to Favorite Web-Based Poker Show, Best Poker Twitterer became Funniest Poker Twitterer, Top Story became Favorite Moment, and Favorite Poker Room Outside Las Vegas was split into East Coast and California categories.
Gone were Favorite Poker Villain, Best Online Poker Player, and Favorite Player of the Year. Added were Favorite Poker Hostess and Breakout Performance of the Year.
The highlight of the awards was the readers’ Favorite Moment of 2010. When the ballot was revealed in December, most could have predicted that it would be a close race, and it was. Winning by a nose was Phil Ivey earning his eighth gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in the $3,000 HORSE event when he beat the likes of Bill Chen, John Juanda, Jeffrey Lisandro, and David Baker at the final table.
Ivey also won this award last year, when it was called Top Moment, for making the WSOP Main Event final table. For the 2010 voting, Ivey garnered 34% of the vote, barely edging Tom Dwan’s runner-up finish in a WSOP event by 3%. Dwan’s run drew the attention of the poker world because he had booked millions of dollars in bracelet bets. Close on Dwan’s tails was Michael Mizrachi and his $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship win, which drew 28% of the vote. The rest of the vote went to Annie Duke’s NBC Heads-Up Championship win.
Other repeat winners included Doyle Brunson (Funniest Poker Twitterer), PokerStars (Favorite Online Poker Site), Wicked Chops Poker (Favorite Poker Blog), the Bellagio (Favorite Las Vegas Poker Room), TwoPlusTwo (Favorite Poker Forum), and the Commerce Casino (Favorite California Poker Room).
The PokerStars “Big Game” was one of the big winners, taking home two awards. Joe Stapleton, formerly of PokerRoad’s “Two Jacks in the Hole,” was voted Favorite Poker Announcer in what was arguably the biggest upset of the awards. Stapleton, new to television announcing, beat such veterans as Ali Nejad, Gabe Kaplan, Norman Chad, and last year’s winner, Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton. It was the closest race of the awards, as Stapleton defeated Kaplan by less than 1%.
“Big Game” hostess Amanda Leatherman won the Favorite Poker Hostess award, dominating the competition. With 42% of the vote, she easily defeated “High Stakes Poker’s” Kara Scott, who garnered 28% of the vote.
While “Big Game” received two Bluff Reader’s Choice Awards, it wasn’t the winner in the Favorite Poker TV Show category. That honor went to “High Stakes Poker” on GSN. The show nabbed 42% of the vote, topping “Big Game” and its 24% without a problem. The WSOP on ESPN earned 20% of the vote, while “Poker After Dark” and the World Poker Tour brought up the rear.
Other winners included PokerRoad’s “Poker Beat” for Favorite Web-Based Poker Show, Poker Table Ratings for Favorite Online Poker Resource, the Borgata for Favorite East Coast Poker Room, and Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates for Breakout Performance of the Year.
Cates is an online poker phenom who is Dwan’s second opponent in the Durrrr Challenge.