Player of the Year

Galen Hall spent the majority of the early months of the year with the Card Player 2011 Player of the Year (POY) lead, thanks to his win at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, which earned him $2.3 million and 3,000 POY points. Then, however, Taylor Von Kriegenbergh, Vivek Rajkumar, and Max Heinzelmann performed well enough to pass the PCA champion in the standings by the first week of May.

Hall continued to play consistently well, scoring two more cashes in the World Poker Tour Shooting Star $10,000 main event (18th place – 120 points) and the European Poker Tour Grand Final €25,500 high-roller event (seventh place – 108 points) to stay near the top of the leader board.

So, when Hall made a deep run in the WPT Championship at Bellagio in late May, it was more than enough to shoot him back to the top of the leader board. He made his third final table of the year and finished third, which was good for $589,355 and 1,056 points. The winner of the tournament was Scott Seiver, who topped the field of 220 players to win $1,618,344 and 1,584 points. Seiver now sits in 41st place in the standings after his first POY cash of the year.

Hall now holds first place in the standings with 4,284 points, which gives him a 724-point lead over his closest competitor. He also increased his winnings for the year to $3,004,198, which trails only the $5,455,150 accumulated by Erik Seidel and the $3,078,139 won by Sam Trickett in 2011.

Speaking of Seidel, he won yet another high-roller tournament in 2011 when he topped a field of 29 players in the $100,000 super high-roller tournament at the WPT Championship. He took home $1,092,780 and 432 POY points for his fourth tournament victory of the year. He now has a total of 2,816 points and is in sixth place on the leader board.

Seidel won the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship in March and the $250,000 super high-roller tournament at the Aussie Millions in January. He also won the $25,000 high-roller event at the L.A. Poker Classic, but it did not qualify for POY points with its field of just 18 players.

Seidel has now increased his career tournament earnings to $15,915,802, which puts him at the top of the list. Daniel Negreanu is second with $14,453,228. ♠