Player of the Year

Top 10 POY Membership Now Costs 3,000 Points, Thanks to WSOP

The price of admission to the top 10 on the Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) leader board continues to rise, thanks to the concluding weeks of the 2010 World Series of Poker. Allan Baekke had to make the final table of event No. 47 ($1,000 no-limit hold’em) just to hold on to a tie for 10th place (3,000 points) with PokerStars Caribbean Adventure winner Harrison Gimbel.

Dwyte Pilgrim made his 11th final table of the year and his first one at the WSOP when he finished eighth in event No. 44 ($2,500 mixed hold’em). He captured 240 points and jumped into fourth place with 3,376 points.

Three new names joined the top 10 since the last issue, thanks to strong WSOP performances. Leading them is Frank Kassela, who built on his two bracelet victories of 2010 when he made his third final table in event No. 52 ($25,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em). He fell just short of a third title, finishing third for $556,053, but the 912 points he collected give him 3,264 points overall, which is good for sixth place in the race.

His two bracelet victories, in event No. 15 ($10,000 seven-card stud eight-or-better world championship) and event No. 40 ($2,500 razz), garnered him 1,020 points and 1,332 points, respectively. Kassela will have to continue his summer rush if he wants to chase down the current POY leader Thomas Marchese (4,442 points), but no one is hotter than he is right now.

The other two new entrants in the top 10 were late additions. Miguel Proulx was the runner-up to Daniel Alaei in one of the biggest tournaments of the summer, event No. 55 ($10,000 pot-limit Omaha world championship). Proulx took home 1,750 points, which went along quite nicely with the 1,440 he was awarded for winning his first bracelet in event No. 28 ($2,500 pot-limit Omaha) a few weeks earlier. His total of 3,190 points puts him in a tie for seventh place with Valdemar Kwaysser.

The final addition to the top 10 was Tomer Berda, who won event No. 56 ($2,500 no-limit hold’em). That gave him 1,800 points to add to the 1,272 that he already possessed, thanks to previous cashes this year in the WSOP and European Poker Tour Grand Final. His total now stands at 3,072 points (ninth place).

WSOP Bracelet Winner POY Breakdown

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

Look Out: Jeffrey Papola

On June 19, Jeffrey Papola defeated Men Nguyen heads up at the $5,000 six-handed no-limit hold’em final table to win his first gold bracelet at the 2010 World Series of Poker. He also took home $667,443 and 1,920 Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) points. Just three days prior, Papola was the runner-up in the $2,500 six-handed no-limit hold’em event. His first WSOP final-table appearance of 2010 earned him $391,068 and 1,500 points. He now has 3,420 points, which puts him in third place in the POY standings.

Papola was happy after the win, but the back-to-back events had drained him. “I have been playing for six straight days, and I have not had more than 12 hours of rest at a time,” said Papola. “It feels really good to win one. It’s exactly the story that I was writing in my head. I was really depressed after the first final table, despite getting the big payout. So, to come back and get a win feels amazing.”

The 25-year-old resident of New York City is currently in his third year of law school at Pace University in White Plains, New York. He graduated from Rutgers University with a double major in economics and political science. It was at Rutgers that Papola began playing poker at the age of 18. A few hours after his bracelet victory, he flew back to New York for class.

“I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with the law degree. I have learned a lot, but as far as practicing law is concerned, I do not see myself being able to do that, because I really do not like the 9-to-5 thing. That’s one reason why I was so drawn to poker,” said Papola. “Law does give my life some balance. If I were not in law school, I would probably be playing poker 80 hours a week. I prefer to do something apart from just play poker.”

Players on the tournament circuit should hope that he chooses to focus on law; just look at what he accomplished in six days at the WSOP.

OPOY Spotlight: Ronald “ScarJo” Lee

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.

Ronald Lee is one of the breakout stars of 2010. He has results dating back as far as 2007, but it wasn’t until this year that he became a serious contender for the OPOY [Online Player of the Year] title. Of his $667,000 in lifetime tournament earnings, $400,000 has been earned in the last seven months.

The SUNY [State University of New York] Albany graduate currently sits in 15th place overall, thanks to 27 qualifying cashes. Lee started his campaign with seven cashes in January alone, and followed that up with his largest score of the year for taking down event No. 3 of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) XV. The $500 buy-in shootout tournament attracted 729 of the world’s best online players, and Lee was rewarded with a $76,545 payday.

Playing online as “ScarJo” and “just2awsum,” Lee has since followed up that performance with wins in the Friday Night Fight on Full Tilt Poker and the $100,000 Guarantee Sunday tournament on Absolute Poker. Thanks to his consistent performance this year, he has put himself in the discussion as one of the best in the game today, and will no doubt be using the remaining months of the year to make a run at OPOY honors.

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.