Player of the Year

A handful of players made progress on the Card Player 2008 Player of the Year leader board during the past few weeks, but two of them made moves in the top 10, as Michael Binger and Vinny Pahuja added to their point totals. Binger won the third poker tournament of his career when he beat 131 opponents to win the title at the World Series of Poker Circuit stop at Harveys Lake Tahoe. For his victory in the $5,000 no-limit hold'em main event, Binger took home $181,379 and 624 points. This took his point total up to 4,416 and put him in sixth place ahead of David Benyamine. This was the 10th final table of the year for Binger, who has won $1,005,846 during the course of 20 cashes in 2008. This was the seventh time that he has cashed for more than $100,000 in any one tournament since he started competing on the tournament trail in 2006.



Vinny Pahuja jumped back into the top 10 on the leader board when he finished in fourth place in the $2,000 no-limit hold'em event at the Borgata $350,000-Guaranteed Deep Stack tournament. Pahuja took home $54,740 and 468 points, and that enabled him to leap-frog eight players in a tight race. Pahuja has won $559,161 in 2008 by cashing 19 times. His point total is 3,918, which is good for ninth place overall.

Many players benefited from making the World Poker Tour World Poker Finals final table at Foxwoods, primarily winner Jonathan Little, who was awarded 2,400 points and $1,120,310 for winning his second WPT event. Little currently sits in 38th place with 2,910 points total. Jonathan Jaffe was awarded 2,000 points and $670,635 for finishing runner-up, and he is currently tied with Little in the standings in 38th place. Sitting ahead of both Little and Jaffe is Jack Schanbacher, who cracked the top 20 by finishing in fifth place at Foxwoods. He took home 1,000 points and $182,196 to take his yearly totals up to 3,414 points and $716,128 won in 2008.



Schanbacher has made four final tables this year in his five total cashes. He made two of those at the Borgata Poker Open in September, where he finished in second place in a $2,500 no-limit hold'em event to take home 930 points as well as $128,940, and then he followed that up by winning a $5,000 no-limit hold'em event two days later. He was awarded $342,000 and 1,104 points for the first tournament win of his career. Schanbacher's other final-table appearance this year was a runner-up finish in a $2,000 no-limit hold'em event at the WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Palace. He lost a heads-up match against Ted Lawson, but still took home $62,992 and 380 points for his efforts.

Look Out: Jonathan Jaffe

Tournament neophyte Jonathan Jaffe first made a name for himself on the live circuit with a semifinal finish in the World Series of Poker $10,000 heads-up event. The fourth-place performance earned him his first six-figure score and a ton of confidence heading into one of his first World Poker Tour events, the Foxwoods World Poker Finals.

Sitting with a massive chip lead late on day 3, rumors began circulating that Jaffe was none other than high-stakes online player "Iftarii." Seated with the likes of Phil Ivey, the young poker wunderkind flat-out denied the claim. When confronted about his Web identity in private, Jaffe confessed, "I'm relatively new to the live-tournament scene, so I figured it could only work to my advantage if it looked like I didn't know what I was doing."

As it turns out, Jaffe and Iftarii are one in the same. "I play a lot of heads-up sit-and-gos. That's kind of my bread and butter. I don't like playing too many tables at a time, but my buy-ins range from $500 to $5,000."

Despite a specialization in sit-and-go play, the 21-year-old remained modest about his accomplishments. "I'd say a lot of my peers have put in about 20,000 games while I have put in only about 5,000. So even though I play a higher volume than most, I still have a long way to go."

Jaffe's three final tables this year have earned him 2,910 Player of the Year (POY) points and the No. 38 spot on the leader board. Ironically, he shares that spot with the player who bested him heads up at the World Poker Finals, Jonathan Little.

Though he is only one final table away from the top 10, don't expect Jaffe to chase the circuit, looking for last-minute points. "I've been playing full time for a while now, but as for the circuit, I'd like to keep my travel to a minimum. I probably won't play more than four big buy-in tournaments a year outside of the WSOP."

He may be playing it close to the vest for now, but Jaffe's earned nearly $800,000 in his short live-tournament career. It appears that he's made the most out of those rare trips to the casino.

Online Player of the Year



Alex "AJKHoosier1" Kamberis continues to hold a massive lead despite being relatively quiet recently. The biggest jump on the leader board came after Daniel "djk123" Kelly tore up the Full Tilt Online Pokers Series X for 1,920 points and $130,000. His three final tables and one outright win vaulted him into third place, just 44 points behind Steve "gboro780" Gross.

The other player to shake up the standings was the anonymous "mendieta19." His runner-up finish in the FTOPS heads-up event netted him another $52,000 and 600 points. That tournament alone was enough to move him from 10th to fifth in the standings.