After a two-month span that saw him earn almost $10 million, Germany’s Fedor Holz has emerged from the orgy of poker in Las Vegas as the overall leader of the two major Player of the Year leaderboards in the industry.
Holz’s play has simply been mind-boggling since Memorial Day in the United States. Coming over from Germany with the object of playing as many events as possible (between the World Series of Poker, Poker Central’s Super High Roller Bowl and an assortment of High Roller events at Aria), Holz could easily say he had a little bit of good fortune on his way to the midpoint of July. Not only was Holz the runner-up at the Super High Roller Bowl (for a $3.5 million payday), he won three of the various Aria High Roller (either $50,000 or $25,000) tournaments to the tune of $1.3 million. Wrapping up his sizzling summer swing in Sin City, Holz captured his first bracelet at the WSOP by winning the One Drop High Roller for a $4.9 million bank. Add it all up (including his three other WSOP cashes) and it means there’s a German bank that will be the recipient of a $9,952,698 windfall (thanks to the Hendon Mob database for the official stats).
The thunderous roll that Holz has been on is reflected in the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year race. Not only has Holz come from nowhere to take over the lead with his 5738 points, he has been able to make sure that his lead is a dominant one. The second place competitor, Justin Bonomo, is a major tournament championship victory behind Holz with his 4470 points (a 1268-point deficit). Third place David Peters, who used the 2016 WSOP to bank his first bracelet also, is definitely in the mix with the two men above him with his 4331 points.
After the top three, there is quite some distance back to the fourth place slot. After picking up his first WSOP bracelet (to go along with a World Poker Tour title), Tony ‘Bond_18’ Dunst has stayed in the conversation for POY. It is arguable that Dunst has had the best first six months of 2016 as, back in February, Dunst was the runner-up at the Aussie Millions Main Event and he has put together some solid work in other tournaments. Still, the 3740 points Dunst has put together lags behind the triumvirate atop the standings.
Rounding out the Top Five is one of last year’s top players who finished 2015 in the Top 20. Defending World Champion (at least until November) Joe McKeehen has played some outstanding poker through the first six months of 2016, earning him 3738 points and putting him fifth on the CardPlayer leaderboard. Only two points behind Dunst, McKeehen easily could threaten the players above him should he get on a heater during the second half of the year.
Rounding out the Top Ten on the CardPlayer rankings are Chance Kornuth (3730 points), Dan Smith (3629), Cary Katz (3320) Anthony Gregg (3223) and Ari Engel (3202) in sixth through tenth places, respectively.
Although it may be a more intricate system, the Global Poker Index Player of the Year race comes up with the same conclusion that CardPlayer Magazine did. Holz rumbled to the top slot with eight of his finishes since May 27 contributing to his 4727.64-point total. Holz’s competition on the GPI POY is a definitive departure from that of CardPlayer as 2016 WSOP double bracelet winner Jason Mercier is the man primarily chasing him at this mark. Mercier has put together 4339.38 points so far in 2016 on the GPI rankings and, bar the performance of Holz, it would be Mercier that many would be speaking about as the best player so far in 2016.
One of the interesting mechanics of the GPI rankings is the closeness in point totals put together by the players. Holz’s lead over Mercier (388.26 points) is almost dominant when compared to Mercier’s edge over third place Nick Petrangelo’s 4200.71 points (138.67 points). In fact, there are only two more players in the GPI tables that have been able to eclipse the 4000-point mark: fourth place Bryn Kenney (4063.37 points) and fifth place Anthony Zinno (4058.35).
More departures from the CardPlayer rankings are seen further down the GPI standings. Steve O’Dwyer (3975.92 points), Peters (3935.82), Dominik Nitsche (3823.32), Sean Winter (3818.11) and Adrian Mateos (3798.23) are in the sixth through tenth place slots, respectively. If you’re scoring at home, this means that, between the two ranking systems, there are 18 men who can claim that they are in the Top Ten rankings in the world of poker (Winter and Mateos, for example, don’t appear in CardPlayer’s Top 50 and Mercier is the 31st best player).
It may seem as if there’s plenty of time for the tournament pros to take a break but, before they know it, the different tours will be back in action. What has become a traditional restart to the tournament poker calendar, the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in Hollywood, FL, will kick off its action at the end of July. The World Poker Tour has already gotten back into their Season XIV schedule with a stop at Choctaw, OK, and will continue with the start of the Legends of Poker later this month in California. Finally, The European Poker Tour comes back for its 13th season in Barcelona, Spain, beginning in August.
These are just the major tournament schedules that will be in action soon. There are a host of minor tournaments held around the world that could push some new names into the mix and the overweighing factor of High Roller events could skew the rankings even further. Whichever way you look at it, there’s going to be a fight for the different Player of the Year awards…that’s if Fedor Holz cools off anytime soon.
