It’s the beginning of a new month (well close enough) and with that, ESPN has released the latest installment of its poker player rankings, dubbed “The Nuts.” ESPN’s rankings attempt to determine who the best poker player is right now, at this moment, and while the pollsters naturally give weight to what a player has done in the past (after all, if it only took a single month into consideration, the rankings would change dramatically every month), players can’t rest on previous accomplishments for too long.
All forms of poker are considered: tournaments and cash games, live and online. Of course, since live tournaments have the most accessible results, they seem to be used more in the rankings than the other formats.
ESPN’s poker player rankings are determined by an ten-member panel: ESPN’s threesome of Gary Wise, Bernard Lee and Andrew Feldman, ESPNdeportes.com poker editor Nahuel Ponce, Bluff magazine editor-in-chief Lance Bradley along with managing editor Jessica Welman, PokerNews editor-in-chief Elaine Chaivarlis and tournament reporter Don Peters, Pocketfives’ Dan Cypra, and Poker Road’s Court Harrington.
Nine of the ten players in the rankings remained the same as last month. Vanessa Selbst is the only newcomer (though she has been a “newcomer” to these rankings on more than one occasion), taking the place of Jake Cody. Selbst re-enters “The Nuts” at number nine on the strength of an excellent World Poker Tour (WPT) L.A. Poker Classic. She won the $5,100 No-Limit Hold’em preliminary event (beating fellow “The Nuts” player Jonathan Duhamel heads-up) and then finished second in the $5,100 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em event, raking in a combined $171,335.
For his, part Duhamel made the biggest jump in the rankings, moving from eighth to fifth. As mentioned, he finished as runner-up to Selbst in the $5,100 tourney at the LAPC. The 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champ also made the final table in the €2,000 No-Limit Hold’em preliminary event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) Deauville stop.
Jason Mercier and Erik Seidel continue to occupy the top two spots in the rankings, though from the looks of it, Seidel’s grasp on that two spot may be tenuous. As Lance Bradley wrote, “He’s still getting credit for destroying the first 10 months of 2011, but he hasn’t found success since then. The hot streak is over.”
The biggest decliner in the rankings was Sam Trickett who, according to the ESPN article in which the rankings were published, has relayed his less than profitable month on Twitter.
ESPN “The Nuts” February 2012 Poker Player Rankings (previous ranking in parentheses)
1. Jason Mercier (1)
2. Erik Seidel (2)
3. Phil Ivey (4)
4. Eugene Katchalov (3)
5. Jonathan Duhamel (8)
6. Shawn Buchanan (7)
7. Chris Moorman (6)
8. Sam Trickett (5)
9. Vanessa Selbst (NR)
10. Bertrand Grospellier (9)
