Player of the Year Update -- Marvin Rettenmaier, Daniel Negreanu and Aubin Cazals Climb

The World Series of Poker is now in full swing and is making a huge impact on the Card Player Player of the Year race sponsored by Lock Poker. A number of notables have made big pushes in the first few events, including Daniel Negreanu, Marvin Rettenmaier, Andrew Badecker, Tommy Vedes, Xuan Liu and Aubin Cazals. Find out how they made their move with this list of the biggest results from the early events at the WSOP:

WSOP Event 2 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em

Brent Hanks defeated a star-studded final table to earn his first gold bracelet, a massive first-place prize of more than $400,000, after chopping, and 1,080 POY points, and as a result moved into 56th position in the overall standings.

Third place finisher Andrew Badecker made his third final-table finish of the year, earning $224,029 and 720 POY points and vaulting him into 19th place in the rankings.

Vanessa Selbst finished fourth for $161,345 and 540 POY points, and now sits in 74th place.

WSOP Event 4 – $1,500 Seven-Card Stud 8/OB

Cory Zeidman won event no.4, the $1,500 buy in seven-card stud eight or better, defeating two-time bracelet winner Chris Bjorin to earn $201,559 and 840 POY points. Zeidman, who had a runner-up finish in a Wynn Classic $2,000 no-limit hold’em event earlier this year, now sits in 54th place in the overall standings.

Sixth place finisher Xuan Liu earned $29,985 and 280 POY points, bringing her to 33rd place in the rankings. Liu previously finished fourth in the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event, and is currently the second highest ranked female player in the POY race behind 19th-ranked Lucille Cailly.

WSOP Event 5 – $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em

A total of 639 players entered the $1,500 pot-limit hold’em, building a $862,650 prize pool. After three days of play, the last man standing was Nick Jivkov, who topped a tough final table that included Daniel Negreanu, Jonathan Aguiar and Tommy Vedes to earn $198,818 and 840 POY points.

More important than even the winner, as far as the POY race was concerned, were the fourth and fifth place finishers at this final table.

Vedes finished fourth and snagged 420 POY points to move into 28th in the standings on the back of his win at the 2012 World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown earlier this year.

With a fifth place finish, Negreanu earned 350 POY points. This was Negreanu’s fifth final table of the year, moving him into 18th place in the overall standings with 1,770 points and year-to-date earnings of $1,522,136.

WSOP Event 6- $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Mix-Max

Aubin Cazals of Toulouse, France defeated Joseph Cheong heads-up to win the $5,000 no-limit hold’em mix-max event at the 2012 World Series of Poker, earning his very first bracelet, the $480,564 first-place prize and 1,440 Player of the Year points.

This was Cazals third final table and second title of the year, and as a result he has shot up the rankings into 12th place with a total of 2,020 points and year-to-date earnings of $646,907. Cazals biggest previous score this year was a runner-up finish in a €5,000 no-limit hold’em event at the Euro Finals of Poker in Paris.

Cazals was not the only player to make a huge move as a result of this final table, however. Marvin Rettenmaier finished fifth in this massive event for $68,181 and 600 POY points, catapulting him into second place in the overall standings. Just a week previously, Rettenmaier won the 2012 World Poker Tour Championship main event for nearly $1.2 million, bringing his year-to-date earnings to $1,585,007.

Here is a look at the top ten leaderboard in the Player of the Year race:

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