Heading into the homestretch for the various Player of the Year races around the poker world, Canadian poker professional Daniel Negreanu is in a strong position to maintain his lead in all the races after what has arguably been the finest year of tournament poker in his career.
On the Bluff Magazine POY rankings, Negreanu used his second World Series of Poker bracelet victory of 2013 (in the €25,000 High Roller event during the WSOP-Europe) to put some distance between himself and the competition. With that win, Negreanu added 260 points to his total for 2013 and currently sits at 1274.66 points. To give a point of relation for Negreanu’s outstanding season, last year’s Bluff POY, Marvin Rettenmaier, used the entire year to only score 73.86 points (1348.52) more than Negreanu has right now. Even if Negreanu only earns a couple more cashes between now and the end of the year, he should shatter Rettenmaier’s mark from 2012.
Everyone else behind Negreanu on the Bluff POY looks like they are playing for second place. David Peters (868.06) has been able to eke out a slim lead over Mike Watson (861.32), while Vanessa Selbst (849.58) and WSOP-Europe bracelet winner Noah Schwartz (804.78) round out the players in the Top Five. Two men who were able to score big in the recent World Poker Tour Alpha8 London, Scott Seiver (runner-up) and Philipp Gruissem (winner), land in the sixth and seventh place slots, respectively (and with only .16 points separating them), while Joe Kuether, Ole Schemion and Blair Hinkle finish off the Bluff Top Ten.
If Negreanu’s domination of the Bluff POY Top Ten wasn’t good enough for you, then his domination on the CardPlayer Magazine POY should open your eyes. Negreanu has amassed an astounding 5140 points on the CardPlayer rankings, almost 1600 points better than early season POY leader Paul Volpe (3578). For Volpe, Steve O’Dwyer (3rd, 3488 points), Hinkle (4th, 3448) or Justin Bonomo (5th, 3395) to make a serious charge, they would have to simply dominate over the final two months of the tournament poker season, not likely in this day and age of tournament poker.
On down the CardPlayer Magazine rankings, Selbst is once again found in sixth place with her 3390 points. Watson has garnered 2964 points to this mark in the season, good for seventh place on the list, while David Vamplew (8th, 2932), Kevin Eyster (9th, 2868) and Seiver (10th, 2802) round out the Top Ten on the CardPlayer leaderboard.
Negreanu wasn’t the leader of the Global Poker Index POY Top Ten a couple of months ago, but his recent success has driven him into the pole position. Behind Schemion on that list a couple of months ago, Negreanu has now moved to the top slot with 1130.87 points. Watson also passed Schemion in that ranking, his 964.8 points taking over second while Schemion dropped to third (963.36). Volpe is in fourth place with 907.75 points and two members of the WSOP-Europe Championship Event final table, Shannon Shorr (896.17) and Ravi Raghavan (881.08) sit in fifth and sixth places, respectively.
Any of the remaining players in the Top Ten can make a move into the upper echelon of the GPI POY rankings, but it is unlikely that they will catch Negreanu. Jonathan Duhamel (7th, 867.33), Peters (8th, 850.79), Gruissem (9th, 843) and inaugural WPT Alpha8 Florida champion Steven Silverman (10th, 842.82) will be looking to make some late season moves to improve their positions.
While Negreanu may be in the catbird seat at this point, there is still a stunning amount of tournament poker remaining over the last two months that may (and that is a slim “may”) have an effect on the final POY standings.
The WPT has a total of six events over this timespan, highlighted by the bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble and the PartyPoker WPT Montreal in November and the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in mid-December (there is also another WPT Alpha8 stop scheduled for November 16 in St. Kitts). The European Poker Tour gets back in action in December with their stop in Prague, the Czech Republic, that should provide some fireworks, and there are a host of other tournaments that, while not thought to be on the scale of the “major” tours, could provide some point potential for POY contenders.
While it isn’t set in stone yet, it may be time for the engravers to start warming up their etchers to put Daniel Negreanu’s name on the trio of Player of the Year trophies that he can add to his mantle.