Player of the Year

Men Nguyen is the most dominant player in the history of the Card Player Player of the Year award. He is the only four-time winner of the award, claiming the title in 1997, 2001, 2003, and 2005. Since the POY award began in 1997, he has won it 30 percent of the time, and he just entered the top 10 in this year’s race during the 2010 World Series of Poker.

Nguyen won his seventh gold bracelet on June 6 when he topped 149 opponents and was awarded $394,800 and 900 POY points. That put his 2010 total at 1,170 points when coupled with his runner-up finish in a $500 no-limit hold’em event at the L.A. Poker Classic in February. Nguyen joined the top 10 when he made his second final table of the summer on June 20, finishing second in the $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em event to win $412,746 and 1,600 points. Nguyen now has 2,770 points and is in eighth place in the standings. All of his fellow competitors should be worried, because “The Master” has lived up to his nickname in previous POY races.

The player Nguyen lost to in heads-up play at the $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em final table was Jeffrey Papola, who won his first gold bracelet, along with $667,443 and 1,920 POY points. Papola also tops Nguyen in the POY standings; he now has 3,420 points, which puts him in third place. He was the runner-up in the $2,500 six-handed no-limit hold’em event that ended on June 16. His first WSOP final-table appearance of 2010 earned him $391,068 and 1,500 POY points.

WSOP Bracelet Winner POY Breakdown

Note: Non-open buy-in events are not included, because they do not award POY points.

Look Out: Vladimir Shchemelev

Before the 2010 World Series of Poker began, few people in poker knew the name Vladimir Shchemelev, but no one had a better breakout performance during the first two weeks of play at the Rio.

He made three final tables before June 8, and in doing so tied a WSOP record. His first final-table appearance ended in a runner-up finish in the $50,000 Players Championship, which earned him $963,375 and announced his presence to the poker world.

Four days later, the bank owner from St. Petersburg, Russia, made the final table of the $10,000 seven-card stud championship and finished in seventh place. He followed that up with a third final-table appearance three days later, where he scored another seventh-place finish, this one coming in the $10,000 seven-card stud eight-or-better world championship.

His third final table in a week made Shchemelev the second player in history to make the final table of three events with a buy-in of at least $10,000 in the same World Series. The other player to do it was Vitaly Lunkin, who won the $40,000 no-limit hold’em event, and made the final table of both the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha world championship (second place) and the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. world championship (fourth place) at the 2009 WSOP.

Shchemelev still has time to build on that record and beat his countryman, which makes him a player to watch for the rest of the summer.

The impressive run has rocketed Shchemelev into the top 10 of the WSOP Player of the Year standings, and also has built him a strong base of 1,200 Card Player 2010 Player of the Year points.

Before this summer, Shchemelev had scored three cashes in the United States and made one WSOP final table. He has cashed a half-dozen times in his home country of Russia, including a 13th-place finish in the PokerStars Russian Poker Tour Moscow main event in 2009. That event was won by Lunkin, another link between the two countrymen.

Shchemelev has drawn many comparisons to Lunkin early this summer, but he surely won’t mind them in the end if he can equal Lunkin’s impressive run last year, which included five cashes, three final tables, and one bracelet. If Shchemelev claims his first bracelet in the coming weeks in a $10,000 event, he will steal a piece of WSOP history for himself.

OPOY Spotlight: Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal

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.

By Julio Rodriguez

One of the more consistent players in the OPOY race for the last four years has been Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal. The 25-year-old online pro racked up a 31st-place finish in 2007, and took a step backward in 2008 when he finished 77th. In 2009, he made his best showing ever, cashing for $594,000 and ending the year in 19th place.

Despite that success, Agarwal is on the verge of improving upon his highest finish, as he currently sits in 14th place in the 2010 race. The Drexel University graduate now has $1.6 million in lifetime OPOY winnings and 12 career titles. He started the year on fire and finished January with eight OPOY-qualifying cashes, including a win in the PokerStars Wednesday Quarter Million for $46,875. He has since increased his cashes to 21, 13 of which have been final tables.

What’s even more impressive is that Agarwal spends much of the year living in India, and must compete with the disadvantage of off-peak playing hours against tough competition on the U.S.-friendly tournament schedules. The late-night and early-morning grind hasn’t had too much effect on the young pro, however, who has managed to become one of the most feared players in the game today.

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.