Almost two months into 2016, the battle is already brewing in the different Player of the Year races that are in the tournament poker world…or at least there is for one of them.
The champion of the Aussie Millions Main Event, Ari Engel, has been able to move to the top of the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year race, despite the factor that he has won less money than the man behind him in second, Steve O’Dwyer. Engel, who used the Aussie Millions victory to push his point total to 2614 points only two months into this year, has been able to take down $1,148,102 to this point. O’Dwyer, who admitted that last year he was chasing the POY (and came up just short) has gotten off to another great start in 2016, earning two wins in High Roller tournaments to end up with 2178 points. While that isn’t enough to eclipse Engel, O’Dwyer’s bankroll likes the sound of the $2,820,030 that he’s added since the start of January.
Two more players from the Aussie Millions Main Event final table are also making their appearance on the CardPlayer POY board. Tony ‘Bond_18’ Dunst used his runner up finish in that tournament to capture the third place ranking on the CardPlayer listing (1900 points), while Samantha Abernathy’s stay at the Aussie Millions not only earned her 1840 points total (the Main Event was one of two final tables she made in Melbourne) but started her year off well with almost $500K in winnings. Rounding out the Top Five on the CardPlayer ladder is the champion of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Mike Watson, who received 1824 points for his championship victory.
At this point in the season, the players are very tightly packed together in the standings, making every finish very important in the rankings. Currently in sixth place is Watson’s runner up at the PCA, Anthony Gregg, who earned 1520 points for that runner up finish and another 280 points for a third place finish in an Aria High Roller tournament at the start of February. In seventh place is Chance Kornuth (1750), who is following the Steve O’Dwyer path to success on the POY rankings by racking up points in the High Roller tournaments (his last two finishes are a second place at the €25,000 High Roller at the European Poker Tour stop in Dublin and a win at the $25,000 Aussie Millions High Roller). Rounding out the Top Ten are Nick Maimone (1444 points), Christopher Leong (1440) and Connor Drinan (1428) in eighth through tenth places, respectively.
There is one name missing from this list who will probably drop into the middle of the Top Ten when he is inserted this week. After an outstanding run at the EPT Dublin, Poland’s Dzmitry Urbanovich – who led the 2015 POY up until the start of the World Series of Poker that he couldn’t play in because he wasn’t yet 21 – took down the Main Event title. That should score him enough points to put him ahead of Maimone, depending on the CardPlayer calculating criteria for 2016.
At this time, we would normally present the extremely accurate results from the Global Poker Index as another method for looking at the 2016 POY race. The GPI POY, which started in 2013, quickly became a recognized standard for players to judge their success for the tournament poker calendar year because results weren’t overly balanced towards big scores. In 2015 Byron Kaverman was able to call himself the GPI POY and previously Daniel Colman and Ole Schemion claimed the title (in fact, Schemion nearly claimed it two years running, finishing second to Colman in 2014).
In 2016, however, it isn’t known what is going on at the GPI. Normally a Player of the Year ranking would have been generated by this point in the season, but that isn’t the case to this mark so far this year. It might be assumed that the GPI would reflect what is on the CardPlayer rankings but, because of their intricate systems for calculations, there are normally some surprises that appear on the GPI POY that make the poker world take a look at other players who otherwise wouldn’t garner any attention.
The GPI is extremely busy trying to put together the Global Poker League and the upcoming American Poker Awards, so perhaps it has slipped through the cracks at this point. But hopefully a 2016 GPI Player of the Year race is in the works as it helps to have more than one standard in the industry, especially when it has been as well-done as the GPI has with their rankings.