Player of the Year

The largest movement on the Card Player 2008 Player of the Year (POY) leader board in the last few weeks was made by the winner of the European Poker Tour Polish Open - Joao Barbosa. The young Portuguese player picked up $462,596 and 1,024 points for the win over a small field of 217 players, but this was not nearly enough to help him contend in the 2008 POY race. The biggest impact made in Warsaw on the POY race was the third-place finish of Dario Minieri. He won $155,184 and 704 points. This was the third final table of the year for Minieri, who also made an EPT final table in San Remo in April, where he finished in third place, and also won his first gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker this summer. This gives Minieri 3,784 points for the year, which is currently good for 11th place.

Final Contenders for the Crown

With the leader board set for the final battle of the year at the Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, there are still several players who can challenge John Phan for the 2008 POY title, and seven in particular. The Doyle Brunson Classic championship event should award 2,400 points to winner. If Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, defending Player of the Year David "The Dragon" Pham, Ivan Demidov, Erik Seidel, Michael Binger, David Benyamine, or Peter Eastgate wins the championship event, he will overtake Phan for the lead. All players in the top 20 also have a chance, theoretically, if they get real hot and win one of the $5,000 preliminary events and the championship event. Of the seven legitimate contenders, Eastgate and Demidov are unlikely to play at Bellagio, given that they live in Europe. So, keep a close eye on the remaining five contenders as they attempt to amass points at Bellagio. Pham and Binger do very well in preliminary events, but Phan also is certain to play most of those events, so the 2008 POY race is sure to provide an exciting finish, which you can follow on CardPlayer.com.




Look Out: Sebastian Ruthenberg

Sebastian Ruthenberg was one of many young players to emerge with his first gold bracelet at the 2008 World Series of Poker. He won his in event No. 33, the $10,000 seven-card stud eight-or-better world championship in June. The young German player from Hamburg defeated Chris "Jesus" Ferguson to win $328,762 after a heads-up match that lasted four hours.

Ruthenberg was not done there, as he went on to validate his WSOP win just three months later. He topped a record field of 619 players at the European Poker Tour Barcelona Open in September. This win provided the largest payday of his career, €1,361,000. The 24-year-old has been playing poker professionally for two years now, a career that he began after finishing his studies as an IT specialist in Germany.

Thanks to a series of cashes that preceded the two largest wins of his career, Ruthenberg now holds close to $3 million in lifetime tournament winnings. His early cashes include three in EPT events, at Warsaw, Baden, and Dortmund, which was his first EPT final table, a third-place finish. He also boasts a collection of fine results at the Austrian Classics. Ruthenberg also cashed in his first World Poker Tour event when he finished in 31st place at the North American Poker Championships in October, where he took home $30,621. Another impressive achievement on Ruthenberg's poker resume is that when he does cash, he often goes deep into a tournament. Of the 11 cashes so far in his poker career, seven of them have been final-table appearances.

Ruthenberg currently resides in 13th place on the Player of the Year leader board with 3,648 points. He has won $2,298,561 in 2008, an amount that only a handful of players have matched. He climbed as high as fourth place on the leader board this year after his win in Barcelona, and he could challenge for the title with a strong showing at the Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic.

2008 Online Player of the Year Standings

With just a few weeks left in the Online Player of the Year race at press time, Alex "AJKHoosier1" Kamberis has all but locked up the title. At this point, it would take a major victory or a combination of multiple smaller scores to catch him. Yet, with three Sundays remaining in the year, anything is possible.

One player who has put himself in position to strike is Mark "dipthrong" Herm. Thanks to his Dec. 7 victory in the Full Tilt $100 rebuy event, Herm was able to jump over a few of his opponents into fifth place on the leader board.

The newcomer to the top 10 is Peter "breeth" Turmezey, who sits in 10th place. Turmezey was having a solid year with multiple wins and big five-figure scores, but none of that could compare to his Thanksgiving weekend victory in the Sunday Million, where he took home more than $196,000.