Countdown: 2024 Player of the Year Top Poker Tournament PerformersA Look At The Contenders Ranked 10-6 In The Final POY Standings |
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The new year is upon us, which means that the 2024 Card Player Player of the Year race has officially wrapped up. In this article we will take a closer look at some of the top performers from the tournament circuit over the past 12 months, with a focus on the players that finished 10-6 in the final POY standings presented by Global Poker. These five players are among the most decorated competitors in the game. In 2024 they combined for more than $27.2 million in POY earnings, with 110 final tables and 18 titles between them.
The fifth through second-ranked players will be covered in a forthcoming article, with the official reveal of this year’s POY award winner arriving soon after.
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-ten 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 resume.
This year marked the fifth time in the past decade that Chidwick managed at least 20 final tables. He accumulated 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.
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 big paydays. Three of the top five largest scores of the 45-year-old’s career were made in 2024, including two of his three recorded seven-figure cashes.
Ausmus locked up the second-largest windfall of his career this summer by finishing second in a $100,000 buy-in at the WSOP for nearly $1.9 million. That fell just a bit short of surpassing the $2.1 million he earned as the fifth-place finisher in the 2012 WSOP main event.
Ausmus 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.
His first title of the year came in a $25,500 pot-limit Omaha event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown back in April. His second also came in PLO, when he triumphed in a $15,100 buy-in at the PokerGO Tour PLO Series II in October. Ausmus is currently the PGT season-long points race leader with 25 cashes, the most of any player on that high-stakes-centric tour.
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.
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. He finished with 7,463 total points, which is good for an eighth-place showing in the standings. The three-time bracelet winner from Washington, DC. More than half of his top 15 largest tournament cashes were lodged this year, including his very biggest score: the $973,882 he earned as the third-place finisher in the $50,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha event 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.
Collopy closed out the win at six of those 26 final tables, including winning back-to-back $10,500 buy-in 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.
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 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.
This was the second straight top-ten 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.
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 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 dollar 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.
Foxen has been one of the most consistent players 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 eight straight years inside the top 20, with an average finish of just better than seventh place. That average jumps to almost fifth if you remove his 19th-place run in 2017.
Photo credits: WSOP, PGT, and Triton Poker.
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