With the World Series of Poker – and its 64 event schedule – set to begin next week, the players have completed essentially the first half of the tournament poker “season.” As players prepare to descend on the “Oasis in the Desert” two men, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Anthony Zinno, will be at the top of the three different Player of the Year races.
On the Bluff Magazine Player of the Year ratings, Urbanovich has taken over the top slot via a tremendous run during the European Poker Tour’s Grand Final festival in late April/early May. Urbanovich finished as the runner-up in the EPT Grand Final Super High Roller to Erik Seidel to not only bag a $1.6 million payday but also massive points towards the POY race. Tossing in a couple of smaller finishes in Monte Carlo, Urbanovich has amassed 888.53 points to sit atop the standings on the Bluff POY.
Establishing a steady pace for the start of the tournament poker year, Steve O’Dwyer has put together an outstanding start that usually would be enough to be the leader at this point in the year. Despite not stepping foot in the United States, O’Dwyer has put together nine cashes (including the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller title) for more than $2.7 million in earnings so far in 2015 and 726.66 points in the POY (good for second). World Poker Tour L. A. Poker Classic/Fallsview Poker Classic champion Zinno (665.7 points), Nick Petrangelo (611.09) and Scott Seiver (606.76) round out the Top Five.
Despite not having a cash in a tournament since March, WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star champion Taylor Paur, who nearly turned around a few days after that victory in San Jose to win the WPT Rolling Thunder (he would eventually fall in third place), is sitting in good position on the Bluff rankings in sixth place with 524.14 points. Another stunner is the seventh place man on the ladder for Bluff – Bulgaria’s Atanas Kavrakov (517.99 points) – who, despite not having a cash larger than five figures so far in 2015, has put together 15 cashes in a variety of European events. Completing the Bluff Magazine Top Ten are Joe Kuether (eighth place, 503.68 points), Ivan Luca (ninth, 495.25) and Seidel (494.86).
Zinno stakes his claim to being the best player through the first half of 2015 by taking the top slot on the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year poll. With his back-to-back WPT wins, Zinno has picked up an astounding 4216 points on the CardPlayer POY, vastly outpacing the competition arranged behind him. In that competition will be some names in common with the Bluff rankings and some new names to consider.
Paur is in the best position to challenge Zinno for the CardPlayer POY at this point, accumulating 2994 points to sit in second. Kuether, whose runner-up finish in the PCA High Roller (to eventual champion Ilkin Garibli) is the highlight of his 13 cashes in 2015, currently holds down the third place position with 2791 points. Urbanovich makes his appearance in the CardPlayer ratings in fourth place with 2598 points while two newcomers, defending World Series of Poker-Europe and reigning EPT Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos (fifth place, 2376 points) and PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion Kevin Schulz (sixth, 2308), make their presence felt.
After EPT Malta champion Jean Montury (seventh place, 2232 points) and Aussie Millions victor Manny Stavropoulos (eighth, 2100), Luca once again makes an appearance on a POY race with an intriguing story. Prior to 2015, Luca had some success in smaller tournament circuits such as the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) and Eureka Poker Tour. Showing how these smaller circuits can breed players, Luca has exploded in 2015 in earning 10 cashes towards his 2037 points for ninth place on the CardPlayer ratings (he can’t sit on his laurels, however…Seiver is nipping at his heels in tenth place with 1950 points).
In what has arguably become the standard for the tournament poker world – the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year standings – a whole other host of characters enter the stage. While Urbanovich sits in P1 with his 3380.7 points, Seiver is the one who gets the nod to sit in the second place slot with 3023.15 points. Seiver, with seven final tables to his credit (but no victories) in 2015, barely keeps that slot over third place Luca’s 2978.0 points. Making his only appearance in any POY is Connor Drinan, who has put together 11 strong cashes to earn the fourth place slot (with 2919.17 points) over the fifth place O’Dwyer (2704.32).
After Kuether (sixth place, 2545.91 points) and Petrangelo (seventh, 2326.17 points) take their places in another POY poll, the GPI POY Top Ten is rounded out by a trio of players that don’t appear on the other rankings. Ramin Hajiyev is in eighth place with 2228.48 points (totaled from 11 cashes), while Vladimir Dobrovolskiy holds down ninth place (2152.88) despite not earning a six figure cash since January. Rounding out the GPI POY is a familiar name to that chart, Sorel Mizzi, who holds tenth place with his 2136.93 points.
While there is a great diversity to the three POY rankings, the upcoming World Series of Poker should bring some stability to the standings. The 64-event schedule – and whomever may get on a hot streak at the right time – tends to have a way of bringing the crème to the top. While that may mean we have some new names in the races come mid-July, these men currently on these polls have all got themselves nicely positioned to use the WSOP to catapult them further into contention for one of the Player of the Year awards that is available.
