Player Of The Year Update: Phil Hellmuth Into Top 5

The European swing continues to make a huge impact on the 2012 Card Player Player of the Year race, sponsored by Lock Poker. Here’s a look at that event and others that made an impression in the last week:

WSOP Europe €10,450 Main Event

Last week saw many changes made to the POY race as a result of the World Series of Poker Europe in Cannes, with the early bracelet events bestowing plenty of points and money on a number of notable pros. The WSOP Europe main event kept up with that trend, awarding roughly $1.3 million and 1,800 POY points to Phil Hellmuth. The 1989 WSOP main event champion is now the first to ever win both the flagship WSOP events on both continents.

This was Hellmuth’s second bracelet of 2012, having won the $2,500 WSOP razz event this summer for his first non-hold’em WSOP title. He also made two other final tables, including a fourth-place finish in the $1 million buy-in Big One For One Drop more than $2.6 million. As a result, the man know as the “Poker Brat” has climbed into 4th place in the overall POY standings with 3,210 points and year-to-date earnings of nearly $4.3 million.

For this most recent victory Hellmuth had to outlast a 420-player field, the second largest in the WSOP Europe main event’s six-year history. He also had to contend with a number of top pros at the final table, including Jason Mercier (8th – €84,672) and Joseph Cheong (4th – €292,320).

This was Cheong’s fourth final table of the year, and the 900 POY points he earned have catapulted the former WSOP main event third-place finisher into 13th place in the overall standings, with 2,570 points and year-to-date earnings of $729,152.

EPT San Remo Side Events

The European Poker Tour San Remo main event is ongoing in the Italian seaside resort town, but there has been plenty of action in the side events as well, with a number of POY contenders making scores.

Vadzim Kursevich climbed one spot to eighth in the standings as a result of a sixth-place finish in a €5,300 no-limit hold’em high roller event that drew 75 players. It was eventually won by Marc-Andre Ladouceur. Earlier this year, Kursevich won the EPT Deauville main event for $1.1 million and also finished third in a WSOP $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event. The Belarusian has 2,829 points and year-to-date earnings of $1,379,987.

Shannon Shorr jumped into the top 20 as a result of the EPT San Remo side events, finishing fourth in a €2,100 no-limit hold’em turbo event that drew 153 entrants. Shorr earned $28,729 and 216 points at his fifth final table of the year, bringing his year-to-date earnings to $663,082 and moving him into 20th in the rankings. The event was won by Keven Stammen for $119,950 and 432 POY points. Runner-up Mclean Karr took home $67,076.

Here is a look at the current top twenty standings in the 2012 POY race:

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