Player of the Year

John Phan Wins Card Player 2008 Player of the Year Award
Becomes the Seventh Player to Win It
By Ryan Lucchesi

With the elimination of Michael Binger in 67th place in the World Poker Tour $15,000 Doyle Brunson Classic on Tuesday, Dec. 16, John Phan clinched the Card Player 2008 Player of the Year (POY) title. This is the first time that Phan has won the award, and he joins a fraternity of players that includes Men "The Master" Nguyen, T.J. Cloutier, Tony Ma, David "The Dragon" Pham, Daniel Negreanu, and Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi. Phan took home poker's most respected annual award by amassing 6,704 points.

This win is especially sweet for Phan, who finished in the runner-up position in the 2005 POY race. He lost the title that year in the final month to Nguyen, who rallied in December to win 636 points and capture his record fourth POY title by the slim margin of 176 points. The 2008 POY award is one of redemption for Phan, who caught fire this summer at the World Series of Poker and never looked back. He took the lead in the POY race when he won the WPT Legends of Poker championship in late August, and no one was able to chase him down this time.

One player who gave Phan a major scare was the 2007 POY winner Pham. The Dragon accumulated more than 6,000 points for the second year in a row, finishing with 6,022. Pham did a great job of defending his title, coming within 683 points of becoming the first back-to-back winner in history. Other players who challenged Phan were Europeans Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Ivan Demidov. Grospellier took down two major titles in 2008, winning the PokerStars European Poker Tour Caribbean Adventure in January and then claiming his first WPT title at the Festa al Lago tournament in October, to pump his point total up to 5,510. Demidov made two of the most prestigious final tables of the year when he finished in third place in the WSOP Europe main event in October, and followed that up with a runner-up finish in the WSOP main event in November. This gave him 4,940 points for the year. Rounding out the top five was consummate professional Erik Seidel with 4,754 points. Seidel held the POY lead for a good portion of the year after he won the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic, but Phan passed him in August.

One highlight of the year for Phan was his first WPT win at the Legends of Poker in August, which netted him $1,091,428 in prize money. He also made two additional WPT final tables, finishing in sixth place in the Bay 101 Shooting Star event in March, and placing fifth at the Bellagio Cup IV in July. He also won his first WSOP gold bracelet in a $3,000 no-limit hold'em event. He followed that up by winning his second gold bracelet a week later in the $2,500 deuce-to-seven triple-draw lowball championship. Phan's summer performance was one of the most impressive runs of tournament poker success in the history of the game.

Phan finished the year with 14 cashes that brought him $2,075,323 in prize money. He made eight final tables and won three major events. He now has $5,371,996 in career tournament winnings, two WSOP gold bracelets, one WPT title, and the Card Player 2008 POY title.

Here is a look at all of the winners of the Card Player POY award:

Hafiz Khan and Toto Leonidas Dominate at Bellagio
By Julio Rodriguez



They're not televised and they don't attract dead money. To top it all off, they are filled with the best players in the world. Yet, some players routinely make the Bellagio preliminary events their own personal playground, making final table after final table for hundreds of thousands of dollars with the small comfort of some anonymity behind them.

Toto Leonidas has called Los Angeles his home for years, but his recent run at Bellagio may make him consider a change of address. Most poker players tend to identify with one casino over another for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it's the proximity to valet parking, comp dollars per hour, or even the eye candy passing out drinks. But the most obvious reason for claiming a "home casino" remains the amount of success that one achieves within its walls.

In the past year alone, Leonidas has torn apart the preliminary events at the posh, Italian-inspired casino, making final tables an astounding eight times while winning three. At the 2008 Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, he finished second and first to take home a combined $245,000 in winnings. He took a total of $595,000 from the Fontana Lounge in 2008 alone, by far the largest amount won outside one of the four World Poker Tour main events.

Leonidas credits a break from cash games for his recent success. "The last three or four years were kind of a struggle for me in tournaments," said Leonidas. "I was playing a lot of cash games. I decided to rededicate myself to tournaments and really concentrate on my play. That has really made the difference in my game."

Perhaps best known for his runner-up finish to Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier in January's PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, Hafiz Khan went on a late-season surge to make unprecedented back-to-back-to-back final tables at the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic.

Over the course of just five days, Khan turned heads with three final-table appearances in $5,000 no-limit hold'em preliminaries, competing against the likes of David "The Dragon" Pham, Jimmy "Gobbo" Fricke, Carlos Mortensen, Freddy Deeb, Michael Mizrachi, and Matt "mattg1983" Graham. Ironically, at the penultimate final table before the main event began, Khan took out Grospellier to virtually end his run in the Card Player 2008 Player of the Year race, getting some revenge for his Caribbean Adventure elimination in the process.

When asked about his motivation for playing after his million-dollar score, Khan admitted to an early struggle. "After my big score in the Bahamas, I wasn't as motivated to grind online anymore," said Khan. "There was that feeling of accomplishment for a bit, but you have to get motivated again so that you can put forth your best effort. I have a hard time spending eight or nine hours in front of a computer monitor, just letting the time go by. So, I've naturally cut back on my online play. But I love to play live and interact with the other players. In 2009, I really want to play a full schedule of live events and see if I can top my 2008."

2008 Online Player of the Year Standings



At press time, there was still plenty of poker left to be played in the final week of 2008, but it would take a near act of God for anybody to catch Online Player of the Year leader Alex "AJKHoosier1" Kamberis. The young pro from Round Lake, Illinois, created more space between himself and the pack with a sixth-place finish in a Sunday $100 rebuy event, all but icing his likely victory. Although the score netted him only about $15,000, the 160 points he received sent a loud and clear message to the rest of the online community that he was not going to let up.

Keep an eye out for the next issue, when Card Player recaps the year in online poker and crowns a champion.