Using his outstanding run during the 2015 World Series of Poker that saw him win a bracelet and finish at the final table four other times, Anthony Zinno has upended the various Player of the Year races in the poker industry. While he wasn’t in tough position previously in some of the rankings, Zinno’s run at the WSOP put him in a dominant position on two rankings while moving him into a third that he wasn’t even a part of two months ago.
On the Bluff Magazine Player of the Year race, Zinno was in hot pursuit of Dzmitry Urbanovich prior to the start of the WSOP. Since Urbanovich could not attend the festivities in Las Vegas (at 19, not old enough to play in a U. S. casino), it was Zinno’s opportunity to strike and he didn’t waste it. Zinno was able to rack up 551.84 points in the WSOP alone to nearly double his 2015 yearly total to 1217.74 points and stretch out to a sizeable lead.
Even though he didn’t play at the WSOP, Urbanovich was surprisingly able to hold onto the second place slot on the Bluff rankings. His 888.53 points kept him in front of Erik Seidel (858.06) for second and third, respectively. Nick Petrangelo (823.09) and Scott Seiver (793.46) maintained their places in rounding out the First Five.
The Second Five is led by Joe Kuether, who moves up from eighth to sixth place with his 776.46 points that was bumped up slightly by five cashes in the WSOP and a nice run at the Bellagio Cup XI. Newcomers to the Bluff list are Dan Smith, who parlayed two final table finishes into points good enough to get him into seventh (775.76), Paul Volpe (771.90), who put together some good early finishes to bump his total up to 771.9 for eighth and Stephen Chidwick in ninth (753.26). Hanging onto the Top Ten is Steve O’Dwyer, who is in tenth place with 736.26 points all earned in non-U. S. events.
The CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year race is threatening to become a runaway. Zinno’s powerful display at the WSOP (along with his earlier success in 2015 on the World Poker Tour in winning two consecutive events) has earned him 6488 points. To put this in perspective, the 2014 CardPlayer POY, Daniel Colman, only had 5498 points for the entire year. It is going to take a mind-boggling run for anyone who is sitting behind Zinno to pass him for the lead.
This isn’t to say there aren’t some qualified players that would love to take that run at Zinno. Kuether gets a bit more love from CardPlayer for what he’s done, earning 3778 points for second place, while Byron Kaverman’s WSOP bracelet win catapulted him into the Top Ten in third place with 3580 points. Jason Mercier (3520 points) and Taylor Paur (3144) round out the upper half of the CardPlayer board.
Argentina’s Ivan Luca, who didn’t appear at all on the Bluff table, sits in sixth place (3117 points) on CardPlayer’s rankings as we head into the second half of 2015. Petrangelo (3104), Igor Yaroshevskyy (3030), Dominik Nitsche (2840) and Benjamin Zamani (2801) take down the other slots on the CardPlayer Top Ten.
There is only one ranking that Zinno doesn’t appear to have run away from the field and that’s the Global Poker Index’s Player of the Year race. After not even appearing on the rankings prior to the WSOP, Zinno has zoomed into the lead with 3753.89 points to seize the lead away from Urbanovich. In fact, two players – Connor Drinan (3657.07 points) and Seiver (3610.3) – also were able to pass Urbanovich, who dropped to fourth place overall (3380.7). Chidwick steps into the last seat in the upper deck of the GPI race with his 3352.67 points.
On the bottom end of that ladder, Luca continues to stay alive in sixth place (3128.45 points) as Mercier comes in at #7 (3090.58). Kaverman (3048.52), Volpe (3010.1) and Kuether (3004.58) round out a Top Ten list that is separated by less than 750 points.
There will be a bit of a post-WSOP slumber, but it will not be a lengthy one. The WPT kicks back into action with the WPT Choctaw in Oklahoma beginning on July 31 while the WSOP Circuit starts its celebration of its 10th anniversary with a stop at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina. While this event will have a $5000 Main Event (July 30), the big tournament will be the National Championship Invitational starting on July 29. Toss in the 3rd Annual Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open and the opening of Season Twelve of the European Poker Tour in August (amongst smaller events between these dates) and the downtime between major poker events will be the briefest it has ever been.
