Which Poker Tournament Stars Made The Top Five In The 2024 Player of the Year Race Final Standings?A Closer Look At The 5th-2nd Ranked Contenders At Year's End |
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2025 is here, with a new year of exciting poker tournament action to follow. That means that the 2024 Card Player Player of the Year race is in the books. We already covered the 10th-6th place finishers in the final standings, with this year’s official POY award winner to be announced in the coming days.
In this story we’ll do a deep dive into the 5th-2nd ranked players from the year-end POY standings presented by Global Poker. These four stars made 83 final tables, with more than $26.2 million in combined total earnings gained from those scores.
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, taking down the WSOP Online $1,000 no-limit hold’em six-max championship to earn $138,327 and the long-awaited hardware.
While that win is probably the headline story for Watson in 2024, it did not count towards his success in the POY standings. 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.
Watson 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.
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 buy-in seven-max event 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 in 2024. He finished third in a $125,000 buy-in at Triton Monte Carlo for $2,045,000 just a few days after a runner-up showing in a $50,000 buy-in there that earned him $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 eight-max 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.
3. Jesse Lonis
Total Points: 8,908
POY Earnings: $6,666,685
Titles: 3
Final Tables: 23
Right out of high school, Jesse Lonis was working construction in New York City. The Little Falls, NY 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 tournament earnings. 2024 was his best year yet, in terms of prize money. Eight of his top ten scores were made over the past 12 months, including two of his three career seven-figure scores. His largest payday this year came when he took down a $50,000 buy-in at Triton Monte Carlo for $1,502,000 and his first trident trophy.
This was one of three titles on the year for Lonis. The first two came in the spring. He won a $10,500 high roller at the Wynn Millions for $193,140 and then triumphed in a $10,500 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 ranking of third in this year’s POY standings is a new personal best. He has now finished inside the top 50 for four straight years, with progressively better final rankings each year. Those finishes were: 43rd (2021), 31st (2022), 18th (2023), and third (2024).
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 of 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 buy-in high roller for $730,300.
Coleman’s first four POY-qualified wins all came in the first four months of the year. He kicked things off quickly, taking down the Card Player Poker Tour Venetian $1,600 buy-in main event for $115,989. Less than a week later, he triumphed in a $5,300 buy-in at the PokerGO Tour Kickoff series for another $120,150. In early February he came out on top in a $15,000 buy-in 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.
Photo credits: PokerStars, Triton Poker, PokerGO, and WPT.
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