Player of the Year

The post-World Series of Poker period continues to be the slowest time of the year for tournament poker, so there was no major movement on the Card Player 2010 Player of the Year (POY) leader board recently. Major movement does loom ahead, though, when the WSOP main event concludes in November.

The final contenders at that final table stand to make huge gains in the POY standings with a top finish in the tournament. Let’s take a look at the POY points that are available in November for the nine finishing places:

Current “November Nine” POY Point Totals:

While only a few of these players currently hold points in the POY race, whoever wins the main event will jump into at least third place immediately, thanks to the 3,600 points for first place. Whoever finishes as the runner-up will move into the top 10.

If Michael Mizrachi becomes the first professional to win the main event in the post-poker boom era, he will take over first place with 4,934 points. This would give him a 492-point advantage over current POY leader Thomas Marchese, assuming that he doesn’t score any points between now and November. If Mizrachi wins POY honors, he will become the fourth player in the history of the award to win it multiple times, joining Men Nguyen, T.J. Cloutier, and David Pham.

The other two players who can leap into the top two places in the standings with a main-event victory are John Dolan, who would have 4,122 points, and Joseph Cheong, who would increase his total to 4,070 points.

A win in the main event won’t guarantee a POY award for any of these players. The average number of points scored by the POY winner during the last six years is 6,703. However, the main-event final table will change the complexion of the race for the remainder of 2010.

Look Out: Tomer Berda

Tomer Berda started the 2010 World Series of Poker in a strong fashion with a fifth-place finish in event No. 5 ($1,500 no-limit hold’em). He ended the Series on an even higher note, winning his first gold bracelet in event No. 56 ($2,500 no-limit hold’em). He was awarded $825,976 and was the final champion crowned at the Rio for the summer.

Berda received 600 Card Player 2010 Player of the Year points for his first final table of the summer, and then logged 1,800 points for the gold-bracelet victory. His total for the year now stands at 3,072 points, which puts him in ninth place in the standings. His other points were accounted for with a victory in a preliminary no-limit hold’em event at the PokerStars European Poker Tour Grand Final in April.

Berda is a 34-year-old software developer who spent most of his life in his native Israel before relocating to Menlo Park, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. His company brought him financial success as he built up a client list that included major financial companies, universities, and several branches of the government, including the U.S. Army.

He slowly began to play poker, learning online and then increasing to full-time play this year. “Even though my company was very successful, I had the poker bug. Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved poker. I didn’t get into poker to make money. I just fell in love with the game. I just wanted to play. Even today, my ambition is not to make a living at it. I just play because I enjoy it.”

He may not be playing to make money, but that hasn’t stopped him from racking up more than $1.2 million in career tournament earnings. He also has fared well in the largest events of the year. He made a deep run in the WSOP main event, finishing in 134th place ($57,102), and he also cashed in the EPT Grand Final main event, busting out in 119th place ($20,096).

OPOY Spotlight:Steve “gboro780” Gross

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.

The idea is absurd, but it is entirely possible that Steve “gboro780” Gross can repeat as the OPOY champion. After winning it all in 2009, Gross thought about taking some time off from the grind and trying a new challenge, cash games. That notion went out the window when he finished third in event No. 12 of the FTOPS XV Full Tilt Online Poker Series tournament, for $155,641, in February.

All of a sudden, Gross had cracked the top 10. Now, with just five months remaining in the race, the “Brunson 10” member has made the climb to second place, just 226 points behind Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek. Gross has racked up 36 OPOY-qualifying cashes in 2010, including an impressive six wins, for a total of $740,363. As it stands now, the New Jersey native is on pace to break his own record of 10,188 points in a single year, but then again, so are three other players.

With more than $2.8 million in career OPOY winnings, Gross is now in second place on the all-time earnings list behind Yevgeniy Timoshenko’s $3 million. Of course, Timoshenko’s biggest score was more than $1.7 million alone, in winning the WCOOP [World Championship of Online Poker] main event. Gross has managed to accumulate all of his winnings without a single score over $275,000. It has become clear that Gross is one of the most consistent players in the online world.

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.