Player of the Year Update -- Ivey and Steinberg Climb

The 2012 Card Player Player of the Year race, sponsored by Lock Poker, is truly an international competition, with major poker tournament events naming champions in Macau, Los Angeles and Oklahoma this past week. Here is a look at the events that had the biggest impact on the POY race:

WPT Legends of Poker

Josh Hale topped a star-studded final table to win the 2012 World Poker Tour Legends of Poker main event at the Bicycle Casino, outlasting Jeff Madsen, Greg Mueller, Ali Eslami and Max Steinberg to earn the $500,000 first-place prize, 1,260 POY points and his first ever major tournament title.

For his runner-up finish, Steinberg earned $293,490 and 1,050 POY points. Earlier this year Steinberg won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet, topping a field of 2,795 in a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event for $440,238. As a result of these two massive scores, Steinberg has moved into 18th place in the overall POY standings.

This $3,500 buy-in WPT main event drew 622 entrants to build a total prizepool of $2,111,690.

Macau High Stakes Challenge

Stanley Choi has won the HK$2,000,000 ($257,854 USD) buy-in 2012 High Stakes Challenge, capturing the $6,465,560 first-place prize, the 10th biggest top prize in the history of tournament poker. In addition to the money, Choi also earned 840 POY points.

A total of 73 players turned out to the StarWorld Hotel’s Poker King Club to post the massive buy-in, with 21 players exercising their option to make a single re-buy. As a result of this incredible turnout, the final prize pool in this event swelled to $23,511,128 USD.

Recognizable names who cashed include J.P. Kelly (12th – $587,778), Di “Urindanger” Dang (11th – $587,778), Philipp Gruissem (10th – $587,778), Alan Sass (9th – $705,360), Phil Ivey (8th – $822,941), Sam Trickett ($999,184) and John Juanda (5th – $1,645,753).

For his eighth-place finish Phil Ivey earned 140 Player of the Year points, moving him into 8th place in the overall rankings.

This was Ivey’s seventh final table finish of 2012, with his lone win of the year coming in the 2012 Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge in January. Ivey now has year-to-date earnings of $3,546,334.

WinStar’s The River Main Event

A total of 1,396 entries were made into the 2012 River Poker Series $2,100 re-entry no-limit hold’em main event at the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma. This solid turnout over the three starting days built a $2,788,000 prize pool. The lion’s share of that went to eventual champion Aaron Massey, who was awarded $651,559 and 960 POY points for the win.

This was Massey’s fourth POY-qualified final table of the year, and his second title. As a result, he moved into 76th place in the overall standings with 1,400 points and $705,098 in year-to-date earnings.

David “Doc” Sands, who is currently ranked 24th in the overall POY standings, finished 20th in this event for $18,122, but did not pick up any POY points.

Here is a look at the top 20 in the 2012 Card Player Player of the Year race:

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