Player of the Year

EPT Grand Final Events Create Leader-Board Movement

Nicolas Chouity won the €10,000 PokerStars European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo recently. He topped a field of 848 players and took home $2,278,328 in prize money. He also tallied 2,400 Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) points, which puts him in a tie for 10th place in the standings with Andras Koroknai. The other big POY winner in the event was the runner-up, Josef Klinger, who won 2,000 points to jump into a four-way tie for 17th place with Jakob Carlsson, Raymond Dolan, and Card Player Publisher Barry Shulman.

The tournament having the biggest impact on the POY race was the EPT Grand Final €25,000 no-limit hold’em high-roller event. Both the current POY runner-up Sorel Mizzi and leader Thomas Marchese made the final table in Monte Carlo from a field of 113 players. Mizzi busted out in sixth place and took home 264 points, along with $190,905, to increase his POY points total to 3,542. Marchese finished a few spots higher in fourth place to win $350,125 and 396 points, taking his total to 3,902 points. So, while Marchese increased his lead over Mizzi, they both distanced themselves from the field by hundreds of points.

Other movement in the top 10 came when Dwyte Pilgrim finished second in a $1,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event at the Borgata Spring Poker Open, which was good for 320 points, taking his total to 3,116; he become the fourth player of the year to chalk up at least 3,000 points. This performance moved him into third place in the standings ahead of Harrison Gimbel. Sam Stein grabbed fifth place in the standings as a result of his eighth-place finish in the Deep-Stack Extravaganza II $2,500 no-limit hold’em main event at The Venetian in Las Vegas. He was awarded 138 points for his fourth final-table appearance of the year, and now has 2,826 points.