Despite some late charges by those pursuing him, Daniel Colman – who ran roughshod over the High Roller circuit this year – swept the major Player of the Year races in the tournament poker world.
On the Bluff Magazine countdown, Colman was virtually untouchable coming into the final month of the year. Despite not earning a cash during the month of December, Colman racked up 1447.7 points to easily outpace runner-up Mike Leah’s 1149.64 points. Rounding out the first five members of the Bluff list were Dan Smith (949.35), Ami Barer (930.79) and a late charging Ole Schemion (927.56), who earned three cashes during the European Poker Tour festival in Prague, the Czech Republic.
Using his victory at the 2014 World Series of Poker Championship Event, Martin Jacobson popped into the Bluff Magazine Top Ten in sixth position (888.5 points) and Mukul Pahuja (882.4) used his championship win at the WSOP Circuit stop at Harrah’s in Atlantic City to eclipse Pratyush Buddiga (881.36) to take seventh and eighth places, respectively. Rounding out the Top Ten for Bluff Magazine were Davidi Kitai (877.6) and Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk (823.55).
On the CardPlayer Magazine rankings for 2014, Colman had to outlast the late assault from Barer. Barer, who picked up two cashes during the Asia/Pacific Poker Tour stop in Macau, was able to rack up 5042 points, but it wasn’t enough to pass Colman’s 5498 point total. Leah would fall into the third place slot on the CardPlayer rankings (4830), while Mustapha Kanit (4514) and Jacobson (4148) rounded out the Top Five.
Pahuja’s WSOP-C win just barely missed passing Jacobson for that last spot in the Top Five. Instead, that victory left him in the sixth place position on the CardPlayer leaderboard (4146 points). A new name in the rankings is Dylan Wilkerson (seventh, 4096), who terrorized the “West Coast” swing on the World Poker Tour earlier this year and capped it off with a final table performance at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic earlier this month. Jake Schindler (3995), Kitai (3829) and an impressive Simon Deadman (3742) round out the CardPlayer honorees.
The most exciting battle among the different Player of the Year races was for the Global Poker Index crown. Colman’s 4141.91 points ruled the roost heading into the last month of 2014, but Schemion nearly made it back-to-back years in which he stole the Player of the Year honors (in 2013, Schemion beat Daniel Negreanu on the GPI rankings in the final month to deny Negreanu a sweep). Instead, Schemion had to settle for second place in 2014 with his 4125.39 points.
Kitai gets a great deal of respect from the GPI Player of the Year rankings, with his highly successful year earning him the third place slot on their leaderboard (4096.1 points). Barer (3873.15), Smith (3839.04), Kanit (3656.31) and Schindler (3604.15) take positions four through seven before names that haven’t appeared in other rankings emerge. WPT World Champion Keven Stammen (3591.38), Jason Mercier (3545.77) and Scott Seiver (3480.86) finish off the Top Ten for the GPI Player of the Year race.
While there is a bit of time for Colman to sit back and reflect on his outstanding 2014 play (and the roughly $22 million it pulled in), these scores all reset to zero in just a few days. The 2015 tournament poker scene kicks off on January 6 when the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure opens up shop on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The Aussie Millions start on January 14, with the L. A. Poker Classic opening up the next day. The WPT will get back to action with the Borgata Winter Poker Open in Atlantic City on January 25 and several other smaller events will occur during the month of January, signifying a new call to action as poker’s finest strive again for the elusive Player of the Year awards.
