2015 Player of the Year Update -- Dan Smith Joins The Top 20

After six-weeks of daily flux in the 2015 Card Player Player of the Year race, things have slowed down just a bit in the wake of the World Series of Poker. Here’s a look the tournaments that most impacted the standings:

Aria $25,000 High Roller

Aria Resort & Casino has played host to plenty of great high roller events in recent years. Just days after completing the $500,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl the Aria poker room held another high buy-in poker showdown.

The July $25,000 high roller event drew a total of 41 entries to build a prize pool of $984,000. The lion’s share of that went to eventual champ Andrew Lichtenberger, who earned $432,980 and 420 POY points.

Dan Smith finished third in the event for $147,600 and 280 points. Smith has been one of tournament poker’s top performers in recent years after breaking onto the scene with an impressive run in 2012, when he finished runner up in the Player of the Year race to Greg Merson.

In 2015 he has made seven final tables, including a win in a €5,200 no-limit hold’em prelim event at the European Poker Tour Grand Final. His biggest score so far this year was his third-place finish in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship. He took home $369,564 and 1,000 points for that score. All told Smith has garnered a total of 2,508 points and $1,011,332 in year-to-date earnings.

Venetian Deepstacks Extravaganza III $5,000 Main Event

The 2015 Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza III $2 million guaranteed $5,000 no-limit hold’em main event drew 547 players to easily surpass the guarantee by more than a half-million dollars.

In the end Samuel Bernabeu emerged victorious with the title, the $537,017 first-place prize and 1,680 POY points. This was Bernabeu’s first title of the year, and it was essentially enough to move him into 52nd place in the overall standings on it’s own merit.

Joining him at the final table where a number of notables including Doug Lee (2nd – $329,882) and Hans Winzeler (3rd – $240,379) and Mark Newhouse (8th – $61,373). Finishing seventh was Javier Zarco, the runner-up in the 2015 WSOP millionaire maker event. This was his fifth final table score of the year. With his most recent $79,274 and 420 point score he climbed into 16th place in overall POY rankings. He has 2,460 total points and year-to-date earnings of $989,239.

Here is a look at the current top 20 in the POY standings:

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