Player of the Year

Top Five Stays the Same as Underlings Jockey for Position

Just two weeks removed from the WPT Championship, three major tournaments were completed, giving a few of the contenders lower in the standings a chance to creep up on Card Player 2009 Player of the Year (POY) leader Poorya Nazari.

The action continued in Las Vegas with a WSOP Circuit event, but most of the POY damage came from Monte Carlo, Monaco, where two huge tournaments put a brand-new face in the top 10 and a more familiar face in the running.

The €10,000 European Poker Tour Grand Final attracted a massive field of 935 players, and Pieter de Korver from the Netherlands took it down, walking away with the top prize of €2,300,000 ($2,990,000). He also picked up 2,400 POY points, putting him in a tie for sixth place in the standings. American player Matt Woodward finished second and earned 2,000 points in the process, putting him within shouting distance of the top 10 in a tie for 15th place.

The excitement of the main event was contagious, and it carried over to the adjacent EPT high-roller event that was running simultaneously. This €25,000 buy-in tournament generated a total prize pool of €1,975,000, thanks to an elite field of 79 players. Taking home the lion’s share of it with her first live-tournament victory of the year was Vanessa Rousso.

The poker beauty has turned heads this year with her outstanding play, and was rewarded with the biggest payday of her career, €720,000 ($962,958). So far this year, Rousso also has made the final table at the WPT Southern Poker Championship and finished runner-up to Huck Seed in the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Those scores, combined with her win in Monte Carlo, give her a total of 1,296 points on the year, which is good for 57th place heading into the World Series of Poker.

Back in Las Vegas, Justin Bonomo was once again doing his best to single-handedly bust all of the players at Caesars Palace in a WSOP Circuit event. Bonomo has had a history of performing exceptionally well at Caesars, but had yet to get the monkey off his back with a live-tournament win until then.

The main event drew a field of 187 players, most of whom were locals willing to put up the $5,000 buy-in. The final table was stacked with notable pros such as Matt Graham, Men “The Master” Nguyen, and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, but it was Bonomo who came out on top, banking a total of $227,692.

Despite being an accomplished player with more than $1.8 million in live-tournament earnings, Bonomo had never been the last man standing in a live-tournament arena. In 2008, he finished fifth in this very same event. In 2007, he made the final table of the Caesars Palace Classic for yet another fifth-place finish, coming up short once again. His victory in 2009 and two other final-table appearances on the year put him in 53rd place in the POY standings, just 1,000 or so points away from the top 10.

Look Out: Florian Langmann

As the European Poker Tour high-roller event in Monte Carlo neared its conclusion, much of the fuss surrounding the final few tables was centered around players such as Daniel Alaei, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, William Thorson, Tony G, and Vanessa Rousso. Right in the thick of it, however, was all-around tournament pro Florian Langmann, attempting to make his fourth final table of the year. Langmann, who is from Dresden, Germany, did ultimately land a seat at the final table, and parlayed it into a fourth-place finish and €188,000 ($251,478).

The 26-year-old got his start in poker in 2005. Despite being particularly new to the game, his raw talent enabled him to get by as he polished his skills. After just one year in the game, he took down the German Poker Championship for almost $50,000. With his bankroll suddenly on the rise, Langmann became a traveling wonder, playing everything he could, gaining both experience and the respect of his peers.

After a successful trip to Las Vegas, where he made two final tables at the Bellagio Cup in 2007, he headed to London for a stop on the European Poker Tour. It was there that he truly broke out, scoring a runner-up finish and adding £346,528 ($644,957) to his bank account. He continued to travel extensively, picking up cashes in the Bahamas, back in the States, closer to home in Baden, and even in Amsterdam.

Then, this year, Langmann opened things up with a second-place finish in a preliminary event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, which was good for $184,300. He followed that up with a near miss at the WPT Southern Poker Championship, and then yet another final table in the EPT German Open main event. With a small win in Vienna, Langmann now has 1,612 POY points and sits in 28th place in the standings. He is a kid who just loves to play, so you can be certain that he won’t rest on his $1.4 million in lifetime earnings, and will be running around the Rio this summer at the World Series of Poker, looking for any opportunity to break into poker’s upper echelon.