European Poker Awards honor Jesse May with Lifetime Achievement Award

The winners of the 2011 European Poker Awards were announced on Wednesday night at a ceremony in Paris, France hosted by 2010 European Poker Award Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Nic Szeremeta, and over the course of the awards’ ceremony the winners were announced in 10 separate categories ranging from Poker Player of the year to Europe’s Leading Lady.

Here is a look at the winners and a brief description of why they were chosen:

• Player of the Year: Sam Trickett

Trickett’s tournament run in 2011 would have been enough to win this award by itself, but when you factor in the Brit’s cash-game success (including another seven-figure score in the high-stakes games in Macau) he was a shoe-in for the award.

• Best Tournament Performance: Pius Heinz

This was another sure-thing, as the 22 year-old German won the biggest tournament of the year, the World Series of poker Main Event in dramatic fashion.

• Rookie of the Year: Andrey Pateychuk

Pateychuk had a breakout year in 2011, winning both a WPT and an EPT Main Event.  Oh, and did I mention that the Russian also finished 15^th in the WSOP Main Event! Overall, Pateychuk earned just over $2 million in his first full year on the tournament trail.

• Europe’s Leading Lady: Natalya Nikitina

Nikitina won a WPT Regional Event in Paris, making her one of the three women who has triumphed on the WPT (although no woman has won an “open” WPT Championship tournament thus far). In an off-year for women the win was enough to earn her the EPA.

• Internet Player of the Year: Ilari Sahamies

Sahamies was the biggest winner in online poker cash-games during 2011, utterly dominating from September on.

• Poker Personality of the Year: Bertrand Grospellier

With his wild personality, and perhaps helped by his much-hyped kickboxing match against Lex Veldhuis, ElkY managed to keep this award out of Tony G’s hands yet again!

• Staff of the Year: Warren Lush (bwin.Party)

Handling the many Party Poker sponsored tournaments, Lush not only runs a tight ship but also does a terrific job marketing and blogging about these events.

• Event of the Year: WSOPE Cannes

The huge attendance increases after moving from its longtime home in London saw the WSOPE, now in Cannes, be one of the few bright spots in the poker world after Black Friday.

• Lifetime Achievement: Jesse May

May’s contributions to poker, and over the past 5-10 years European Poker, were honored as the longtime commentator, personality, and author took home the Lifetime Achievement Award.