Player of the Year

The largest poker tournament of the year outside the United States, the European Poker Tour Grand Final, took place recently in Madrid, Spain. The tournament attracted a field of 686 players, generating a huge prize pool of €6,860,000. The top prize was $2,145,900, which was claimed by Ivan Freitez from Venezuela.

Freitez also took home 2,400 Card Player 2011 Player of the Year (POY) points, which puts him in a tie for ninth place. He shares his spot on the leader board with fellow 2011 tournament champions Alan Sternberg (WPT Shooting Star) and David Gorr (Aussie Millions).

With each passing month, the top 10 in the POY standings has become harder and harder to crack, so not even the runner-up in Madrid, Torsten Brinkmann, was able to make the top 10 after winning 2,000 points. He did take home $1,287,540 for his efforts, and now sits in 16th place in the standings.

Tamas Lendvai (1,600 points) and Andrey Danilyuk (1,200 points) also made four-digit POY scores for their third- and fourth-place finishes, respectively. The final table was headlined by Team PokerStars pro Juan Maceiras (fifth place — 1,000 points), who recorded the highest finish by a player from the host country of Spain, and Brazilian Team PokerStars pro Alexandre Gomes (seventh place — 600 points).

Two Americans rounded out the final table of eight. Eugene Yanayt finished sixth and grabbed 800 points, while Andrew Li was the first player to fall at the final table in eighth place, for 400 points. You can read all about the EPT Grand Final in the feature story of this issue.

Final-table results with POY points were as follows:

1 Ivan Freitez $2,145,900 (2,400 points)
2 Torsten Brinkmann $1,287,540 (2,000 points)
3 Tamas Lendvai $786,830 (1,600 points)
4 Andrey Danilyuk $572,240 (1,200 points)
5 Juan Maceiras $450,639 (1,000 points)
6 Eugene Yanayt $357,650 (800 points)
7 Alex Gomes $264,661 (600 points)
8 Andrew Li $185,978 (400 points)