Player of the Year

Thomas Marchese Takes Player of the Year Lead
Two Other Pros Rejoin the Top 10

There was a lot of movement in the Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) standings in March. The big change came at the top, with Thomas Marchese taking the lead from Harrison Gimbel. Marchese finished 24th in the World Poker Tour Shooting Star event at Bay 101, and took home $20,500 and 50 POY points. He followed that up with his third final-table appearance of the year in the Wynn Classic $5,000 no-limit hold’em championship. He finished in fourth place, which was good for $73,356 in prize money and 576 points.

These two cashes came on the heels of a very strong February, when Marchese won the North American Poker Tour Venetian main event, for $827,648 and 1,920 points. His first cash this year came on Feb. 5 in the Borgata Winter Open $5,000 championship event; he finished third and won $190,027 and 960 points. He now has 3,506 POY points and has won $1,111,531 in tournaments during the last two months.

Two players rejoined the top 10 in the POY race during March. Jared Jaffee began the year with a strong run at the Southern Poker Championship in January, where he won 1,358 points and $192,971 in prize money. He recently was the runner-up in the Wynn Classic championship event, and won $246,477 and 960 points. Jaffee now has 2,318 points and sits in seventh place in the POY standings.

Sorel Mizzi is another young professional who has been consistent all year. His biggest score came in the Aussie Millions main event in January, where he finished third to take home $638,004 and 1,280 points. He recently made his fourth and fifth final tables of the year at the Wynn Classic. He finished fifth in a $1,500 no-limit hold’em event, winning $10,389 and 120 points, and followed that up with his first tournament win of the year; he won a $2,000 no-limit hold’em event and was awarded $85,417 and 312 points. Mizzi is now in ninth place with 2,150 points.

Look Out: Lars Bonding

Lars Bonding is not new to poker. He has been posting tournament results since 2005, and has won four tournaments during his career while accumulating $1,238,155 in prize money. The reason that players need to look out for Bonding in 2010 is that he is experiencing a live-tournament renaissance.

Three of his four tournament wins came during an eight-day stretch in February 2010 at the Venetian Deep-Stack Extravaganza. He cashed four times there. He won $300, $500, and $1,000 no-limit hold’em tournaments during the event, and racked up 672 Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) points and $78,682 in prize money.

Bonding followed up a strong February at The Venetian with a strong March just down the street at the Wynn Classic. He made his fourth and fifth final tables of the year there, and cashed four times. He added another 316 POY points to his total, and won another $32,850.

Bonding has cashed eight times during the last two months, winning 988 points and $111,532 in prize money. His five final-table appearances are tied for second overall with Sorel Mizzi. Only Dwyte Pilgrim has made more final tables this year with seven.
The best thing about his recent success is that the professional poker player from Aarhas, Denmark, was just taking a break from online play when he went on this impressive run. “He just went down there to blow off a little steam, and ended up being on quite a heater,” said his wife, Esther. Bonding has cashed seven times at the World Series of Poker during his career, and if he decides to blow off a little more steam this summer, he could go on quite a run at the Rio.

OPOY Spotlight:
William ‘imahustla1’ Givens

By Julio Rodriguez

The Card Player Online Player of the Year (OPOY) award honors the best tournament player across the major online sites in a given calendar year. Here, we take a look at one of the current top contenders.

It wasn’t too long ago that Will “imahustla1” Givens was broke, leaving Las Vegas, and wondering if he’d ever play poker professionally again. The 24-year-old packed up and headed back home to Aurora, Colorado, taking a job while playing the occasional small-stakes cash game on the side.

Then, in October 2009, Givens did well enough in his cash game to buy into a $360 satellite for the Heartland Poker Tour event in Blackhawk. He took it down, and locked up his seat in the $1,650 main event. Still unsatisfied, he went back to the cash games, won again, played another satellite, and won his second seat into the main event. Now more than freerolling, Givens steamrolled the 322-player field en route to an impressive $144,765 payday — not bad, considering his predicament at the time.

He then quit his job and began grinding again. Soon, he was back online and winning. He began 2010 with a win in the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand tournament for $19,288. Then, he followed that up a week later with a huge win in the Full Tilt $750,000 Guarantee tournament for $122,145. Amazingly, the next night, he won yet again, banking $78,750 in the $1K Monday tournament.

He’s since followed that up with four more final tables, including a win in the Full Tilt Friday Night Fight event. Givens has now earned $324,403 online in 2010 and earned 3,358 OPOY points. That’s enough to put him in third place in the standings, but with grind on the mind, Givens won’t be satisfied until he’s standing alone at the top.

You can check out more about the 2010 OPOY race and leader board by visiting http://www.CardPlayer.com/poker-players/online-player-of-the-year.