Player of the Year

The 2009 UltimateBet Aruba Poker Classic $5,000 no-limit hold’em championship concluded recently, and Eric Baldwin finished fourth. With the 960 Card Player 2009 Player of the Year (POY) points he was awarded, he moved back into first place in the POY race, overtaking former leader Yevgeniy Timoshenko. Baldwin had 5,596 points after this performance, but he wasn’t done there. He increased his lead by scoring points four times at the Caesars Palace Classic. He won a $300 no-limit hold’em turbo tournament on Oct. 18, for $10,686 and 120 points. Three days later, he made a second final table, cashing in seventh place in another $300 no-limit hold’em turbo tournament, for $1,397 and 30 points. Two days after that, he made a $300 no-limit hold’em final table and captured $2,590 and 72 points. Two days later, he made his fourth final table in seven days, this time placing fifth in a $500 no-limit hold’em event, for $4,656 and 80 points. He now has 5,898 points and has won $1,220,111 in tournaments in 2009.

Baldwin has tallied POY points on 14 different occasions in 2009. His greatest hits include a win in The Venetian’s Deep-Stack Extravaganza $2,000 no-limit hold’em tournament in April, which netted him 1,008 points, and he followed that up with two more 1,000-point performances at the World Series of Poker. He took home 1,440 points when he won event No. 34 ($1,500 no-limit hold’em), and he added another 1,120 points when he finished third in event No. 45 ($10,000 pot-limit hold’em world championship).

Another player who used the Aruba final table to make a big move in the POY standings was Brock Parker. He finished in sixth place and picked up 640 points. He moved into fourth place, and currently has 3,772 points. He earned the bulk of his points at this summer’s WSOP. He was the first double-bracelet winner of the summer, capturing event No. 14 ($2,500 six-handed limit hold’em) for 1,332 points, and following that up with a win in event No. 19 ($2,500 six-handed no-limit hold’em) to add another 1,800 points.

Tommy Vedes Books a Big Win at Bellagio
The World Poker Tour Festa al Lago Classic $15,000 no-limit hold’em main event awarded a huge chunk of POY points recently, and the player who walked away with the bulk of them was the champion, Tommy Vedes. The resident of Queens, New York, has been a rising threat on the tournament trail during the past couple of months, and his win at Bellagio earned him 1,680 points. When combined with his five previous POY points-earning finishes in 2009, his points total is now 2,918, which is good for 14th place on the leader board.

Vedes has made half a dozen final tables in 2009, and he made a huge splash at the WSOP when he finished 19th in the $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event. He also cashed in fifth place of event No. 48 ($1,500 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better). He followed up his strong summer performance with deep runs at the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic, where he finished 18th, and the PokerStars European Poker Tour London, where he finished in 54th place.

Tournaments Abroad Add POY Points to the Mix
Players who booked large POY winnings abroad during October were the champions of the World Poker Tour main event in Marrakech, the PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour main event in Auckland, New Zealand, and the PokerStars European Poker Tour main event in Warsaw. Christophe Savary topped a field of 416 players in Marrakech to win €377,262 and 1,920 points. Simon Watt was the champion in Auckland, besting a field of 263 players to capture $158,255 and 624 points. And, Christophe Benzimra topped a field of 203 players in Poland to take home his first EPT title, $528,253, and 960 points.

Look Out: Corwin Cole

Corwin Cole first cashed in a live poker tournament in February of 2008. In less than two years since that cash, Cole has gone on to win a tournament ($2,000 no-limit hold’em at the 2008 Festa al Lago Classic) and make half a dozen final tables. He has yet to score a major-tournament win, but he is getting closer to achieving that goal each month. He most recently finished 21st in the $15,000 World Poker Tour Festa al Lago Classic no-limit hold’em championship event, for $23,855 in prize money. He also cashed twice at this summer’s World Series of Poker; his deepest finish came in event No. 36 ($2,000 no-limit hold’em), where he cashed in 16th place out of a field of 1,695 players, and was awarded $21,008.

He is closing in on half a million dollars in career winnings, and is just getting started. He was first drawn to poker from the StarCraft computer-game community, following in the footsteps of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Daniel Schreiber. “I started playing really small-stakes sit-and-gos on PartyPoker four years ago, and then I played some small-stakes cash games for a while,” said Cole. A big score in the PokerStars Sunday Million then enabled him to make the jump to live tournaments exclusively, and he has been traveling the tournament circuit for the past year and a half. “I just like the game,” he remarked. “I would still be playing regularly even if there wasn’t much money involved.”

He possesses a sense of competitiveness on the felt that he attributes to many factors. Many would think that it was his experience in playing in StarCraft tournaments that fed his desire to play poker, but Cole admits otherwise. “What did that more than anything was my education. I got a bachelor’s degree in biology, so I learned a lot about being skeptical and levelheaded,” said Cole. He also referenced another lifelong hobby that he pursues. “I have played golf throughout my life very competitively, which has taught me a lot about patience and emotional control; both of those things are really important in poker,” said Cole. He says that he’s very happy with life on the tournament trail, and he will continue to draw on the lessons he has learned from the different disciplines in his life to make him a better player. A big win shouldn’t be too far away for this rising poker talent.