The Best Of The Rest: 2024 POY Contenders

David Coleman

2. David Coleman
Total Points: 9,698
POY Earnings: $4,737,165
Titles: 5
Final Tables: 24

David Coleman came into 2024 without a single live tournament trophy, despite having millions in earnings and several close calls accumulated across more than a decade of high-level play. The 31-year-old poker pro based out of Las Vegas ended the year with five POY-qualified victories, having gone on a title spree in the first half of the year to put an emphatic end to his drought. With those wins and 24 total final-table finishes, Coleman came quite close to capturing the 2024 POY award, finishing just 476 points outside of the top spot.

Eight of Coleman’s top 12 scores on the circuit were made this past year, including his three largest paydays yet. He saved the best for last in that regard, finishing sixth in the WSOP Paradise Triton $100,000 main event for a career-high $890,000 windfall. His next-largest score came in a win. He beat out a field of 117 entries in the WPT Alpha8 Trifecta $25,000 high roller for $730,300.

He kicked off the year quickly, taking down the Card Player Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 main event for $115,989. Less than a week later, he triumphed in a $5,300 event at the PokerGO Tour Kickoff series for another $120,150. In early February he came out on top in a $15,000 high roller at the PokerGO Cup for $302,400. Then, in April, he was the last player standing in a U.S. Poker Open $10,000 buy-in, a win which was good for $202,300.

Coleman got his start in poker grinding online in his home state of New Jersey. After this career year, he has established himself as a player to watch on the live scene moving forward. The $4.7 million in POY earnings he accumulated in 2024 account for more than half of his lifetime haul, which is approaching $9 million.

Jesse Lonis

Right out of high school, Jesse Lonis was working in construction in New York City. The Little Falls, New York native had picked up poker as a hobby after learning the game from his grandmother and uncle and was dabbling in low-stakes cash games. He likely never would have imagined at that time that within a decade he would be a two-time WSOP bracelet winner and consistent top contender in the POY race.

Lonis is now 29 years old, with more than $14.6 million in career earnings. 2024 was his best year yet, in terms of prize money. Eight of his top 10 scores were made over the 12-month stretch, including two of his three career seven-figure scores. His largest payday this year came when he took down a $50,000 high roller at Triton Monte Carlo for $1,502,000.

He won a $10,500 high roller at the Wynn Millions for $193,140 and then triumphed in a $10,500 event at the U.S. Poker Open for $252,450 roughly a month later.

Lonis made 23 final tables in total. His second-largest score of the year came in the $50,000 no-limit hold’em event at the WSOP. He finished second for $1,358,633, narrowly missing out on his third career bracelet. He also came quite close to winning two large-field main events this year, placing third in both the Lucky Hearts Poker Open and the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.

Lonis accrued nearly $6.7 million across his final-table runs this year, which accounts for nearly half of his total career earnings. His final standing of third is a new personal best. He has now ranked inside the top 50 for four straight years, with progressively-better finishes each year. Those finishes were: 43rd (2021), 31st (2022), 18th (2023), and third (2024).

4. Punnat Punsri
Total Points: 8,478
POY Earnings: $7,164,933
Titles: 2
Final Tables: 19

Thailand’s Punnat Punsri came into 2021 with just 10 live poker cashes to his name, totaling $131,000 in earnings. In the four years since, he has accumulated more than $20 million in cashes while establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with at the highest stakes the tournament world has to offer.

In 2024, Punsri managed his second consecutive calendar year with more than $7 million in POY earnings. The 32-year-old made 19 final tables, coming away with two titles along the way. The two outright wins came earlier in the year. He first took down a smaller event at the Malaysia Poker Dream VIII series for $176,858 in February. Roughly six weeks later he bested a field of 190 entries in the $50,000 high roller at the Triton Jeju festival for $2,010,000 and 1,428 POY points. This was his second career win on the nosebleed-stakes tour.

Punsri recorded two other seven-figure scores during the year, finishing third in a $125,000 event at Triton Monte Carlo for $2,045,000 just a few days after a runner-up showing in a $50,000 event for $1,021,000.

Another second-place finish saw Punsri fall one spot shy of securing his first WSOP bracelet. He navigated his way through 1,042 entries in the $5,000 no-limit event to make it down to heads-up play with Matthew Alsante, who eventually triumphed to walk away with the hardware. While Punsri couldn’t capture that title, he did earn $523,648 and a pile of POY points for his deep run.

5. Michael Watson
Total Points: 7,958
POY Earnings: $7,663,989
Titles: 4
Final Tables: 17

Michael Watson wrote his name in the history books this year by becoming the latest addition to the elite short list of Poker Triple Crown winners. The club consists of players with at least one World Series of Poker bracelet along with victories in World Poker Tour and European Poker Tour main events.

The Canadian poker pro has been a force on the live circuit for nearly two decades. He scored the first leg of this trifecta when he won the 2008 WPT Bellagio Cup IV for $1,673,770. As for the EPT, he took down both the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure ($728,325) and the 2022 EPT Monte Carlo main events ($801,885). He finally sealed the deal in a WSOP event this summer, finishing atop the WSOP Online $1,000 no-limit hold’em six-max championship to earn $138,327 and the long-awaited hardware.

Watson made 17 POY-qualified final tables this year, cashing for more than $7.6 million across those scores. He ended up with four titles in POY events, including a seven-figure win ($1,023,000) in the $30,000 Triton Montenegro eight-max event and a $660,478 score as the champion of a €10,300 high roller at EPT Barcelona.

The online crusher also scored the two largest paydays of his career in ultra-high-stakes events. He finished third in the $150,000 buy-in at Triton Jeju for nearly $1.9 million and fourth in the $200,000 invitational event at Triton Montenegro for another $1.8 million. The Toronto, Ontario resident now has more than $30.6 million in total career earnings, which is good for fifth place on the Canadian all-time money list.

6. Alex Foxen
Total Points: 7,909
POY Earnings: $7,949,3328
Titles: 3
Final Tables: 20

Alex Foxen closed out another massive year on the high-stakes tournament circuit on a high note, taking down the $100,000 buy-in WSOP Paradise Triton main event for his third career bracelet and a massive $3.8 million payday. This win came just a few days after Foxen placed sixth in the $500,000 Triton Million event for $2,795,000.

Those were the second and third-largest tournament paydays yet for Foxen, whose lifetime haul on the tournament circuit now sits at nearly $43.4 million. He is just the 18th player in the history of the game to surpass $40 million in career cashes.

The 33-year-old American poker pro tallied 20 total final-table finishes and three POY-qualified titles. He also won a WSOP Online event earlier in the year for what was his second bracelet win, and narrowly missed out on another at the WSOP Europe festival.

Foxen has been perhaps the most consistent player on the circuit in recent years. His latest finishes in the POY race are as follows: 6th (2024), 9th (2023), 4th (2022), 4th (2021), 8th (2020), 2nd (2019), 3rd (2018), and 19th (2017). That’s seven straight years inside the top 10, with an average finish of fifth place.

7. Ren Lin
Total Points: 7,823
POY Earnings: $3,565,228
Titles: 2
Final Tables: 23

Just one day removed from falling one spot shy of his first bracelet, Ren ‘Tony’ Lin somehow managed to trek all the way from the WSOP Paradise festival Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas to Las Vegas to enter the $3,000 six-max event at the WPT World Championship. Lin went on to win that event, earning $180,000 and his second title of the year.

That sequence is evidence of just how hard Lin has been grinding the circuit in recent years. He managed 23 POY-qualified final tables this year, accruing more than $3.5 million along the way. He now has more than $14.8 million in earnings across 223 recorded cashes, with 53 of those scores recorded in 2024.

Lin’s other win this year saw him take down the inaugural PGT Texas Poker Open main event, besting a field of 735 entries in the $3,300 buy-in event to earn $400,000. He also had a good stretch at Triton Jeju, cashing four times for $1.05 million, and Triton Monte Carlo, cashing five times for $850,000.

This was the second straight top-10 finish for Lin in the POY race, having placed fifth in 2023. The Chinese-born player, now based out of the US, is definitely a player to watch in 2025.

8. Jim Collopy
Total Points: 7,463
POY Earnings: $3,735,483
Titles: 6
Final Tables: 26

Jim Collopy ended 2024 with the highest final POY ranking so far of his career, which spans back to 2007. The three-time bracelet winner finished with 7,463 total points, which is good for an eighth-place showing in the standings. More than half of his top 15 largest tournament cashes were lodged this year, including his very biggest score, which was the $973,882 he earned as the third-place finisher in the $50,000 pot-limit Omaha high roller at the WSOP. He made 26 POY-qualified final tables, the second-highest total recorded this year. The final table lead ended in a tie between Ari Engel and Jeremy Becker, who both made 27 in 2024.

The Washington D.C. native closed out the win six times, including back-to-back $10,500 side events at the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas during the final weeks of the year.

He also captured his first PGT series championship in the fall, securing the Poker Master’s Purple Jacket after going on a tear with four consecutive final-table finishes that concluded with back-to-back runner-up showings.

9. Jeremy Ausmus
Total Points: 6,849
POY Earnings: $6,327,423
Titles: 2
Final Tables: 21

Six-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus had one of his biggest years on the live tournament circuit, especially when it comes to securing massive paydays. Three of the top five largest scores of the 45-year-old’s career were made in 2024, including two of his three seven-figure cashes. This is the fourth straight year that Ausmus has finished inside the top 25 in the POY standings. His best finish in that stretch was his fifth-place showing in 2022.

Ausmus earned his second-largest payday ever in the $100,000 high roller at the WSOP for nearly $1.9 million. That fell just a bit short of the $2.1 million he banked in the 2012 WSOP main event.

The former high-stakes cash game grinder made a total of 21 final tables in 2024, coming away with two titles while accruing more than $6.3 million across those events. That accounts for roughly a quarter of his $24 million in career cashes.

As a result of his performance in high stakes events with two wins and 25 cashes, Ausmus was also the PGT season-long points race leader.

10. Stephen Chidwick
Total Points: 6,229
POY Earnings: $5,686,359
Titles: 5
Final Tables: 20

Two-time POY award winner Stephen Chidwick has finished inside the top 50 in 11 of the past 12 years and has ended as a top-10 performer in six of the last eight races. This year the 35-year-old poker pro from Deal, England made 20 POY-qualified final tables, winning five titles along the way.

Chief among those victories was his triumph in the $50,000 pot-limit Omaha event at the World Series of Poker Paradise festival in December. He beat out a field of 122 entries to earn $1,357,080 and his second career gold bracelet.

This was one of two seven-figure scores he recorded in 2024. He also finished fifth in the $150,000 buy-in at the Triton Monte Carlo series for $1.3 million. He now has 13 cashes for a million dollars or more on his résumé.

This year marked the fifth time in the past decade that the former online poker standout managed at least 20 final tables. He racked up nearly $5.7 million across his POY-qualified scores this year. With more than $63.6 million in total recorded cashes, he is the third highest-earning player in poker tournament history.