With the final four months of the 2012 tournament poker season revving up, poker pro Dan Smith has surged to the lead on all of the major Player of the Year races in the poker world.
Smith, who has been lurking back in the pack for much of the 2012 tournament poker season, has used an outstanding surge over the past couple of months to take command of the various POY races that are compiled. Following the World Series of Poker this summer, Smith used the European Poker Tour stop in Barcelona, Spain to make his move on the charts. He won the €50,000 Super High Roller event during the time in Spain (for a €962,925 payday) and added a fourth place finish in the €10,000 Heads Up tournament to push his earnings for the year over the $3 million mark.
On the Bluff Magazine POY standings, those two performances have helped to solidify his lead over the Top Ten. Smith has compiled 1181.41 points, good for more than a 154 point lead over World Poker Tour Merit Cyprus Classic champion Marvin Rettenmaier (1026.47). The remainder of the Top Ten is a good distance back of these two men and it looks as if they will be the ones who will determine the Bluff POY champion.
Phil Ivey has dropped from his second place ranking following the WSOP to third place (904.17 points), but the one finish since this summer in Las Vegas has been a good one. Ivey finished in eighth place at the Super High Roller event during the Macau High Stakes Challenge (good for a $822,941 bankroll boost) to keep him in front of former Bluff POY leader Jonathan Duhamel (800.5), who has only been able to tack on one cash since the WSOP. Rounding out the Top Five on the Bluff ladder is Vanessa Selbst with 697.7 points.
The remainder of the Top Ten on the Bluff board sees Kyle Julius (694.43), Oliver Speidel (669.81), Tommy Vedes (660.57), Daniel Negreanu (654.16) and John Dolan (648.36) round out the list. Dropping out of the Top Ten since early August are Michael Mizrachi and Joe Kuether.
Many of these same suspects can be found on the CardPlayer Magazine POY race. Smith is atop the table with his 4100 points, but Julius is in second place with 3752 points, only a solid final table finish away from eclipsing Smith. Rettenmaier (3272) has moved up to take over the third place slot, while Speidel currently resides in fourth place (3046) ahead of a newcomer to the race. Anthony Gregg, the winner of the WPT stop at the Parx Casino in Pennsylvania in mid-August, now holds down the fifth place slot (2984).
There are a couple of names in the remainder of the CardPlayer POY Top Ten that aren’t in the Bluff rankings. Vadzim Kursevich (2717, sixth place), John Dibella (2512, ninth) and Daniel Kelly (2508, tenth) are joined by Kuether (2716, seventh) and Ivey (2635, eighth) to compose the CardPlayer POY Top Ten. Davidi Kitai is the only player to drop out of the CardPlayer Top Ten.
On the Global Poker Index POY race, Smith (879.44) maintains a 77 point lead over Rettenmaier (802.42) to put them ahead of Duhamel (741.24) in the Top Three. There are two names that haven’t appeared on our other two lists that round out the Top Five on the GPI POY. David ‘ODB’ Baker is in the fourth place slot with his 715.91 points, while Andrew Lichtenberger’s 713.68 points is good enough to earn the fifth place ranking.
In looking at the remainder of the GPI Top Ten, two more names are there that haven’t been seen on the other rankings. Erik Cajelais, a final table finisher at the WPT Legends of Poker in August, sits in the eighth place slot on the GPI POY with 639.54 points and Jason Koon maintains a slight lead over Vedes for the tenth place position. Ivey (sixth), Negreanu (seventh) and Julius (ninth) complete the GPI POY Top Ten.
The next two months of the tournament poker season could go a long way in determining who will emerge as the champion of the various POY races. The WPT has a slew of tournaments around the world which should award big points to their champions, while the EPT opens up play on their San Remo, Italy event in October and the WSOP Europe is contested in Cannes, France (and this isn’t even counting other big events outside of the major tours). By the time that Halloween is completed, the contenders should be separated from the pretenders in every major Player of the Year race as the homestretch looms.