Poker players jockey for position on POY leader-boards

We are now two months through the 2012 tournament poker season, and the Player of the Year races (there are now three of them thanks to the partnership between PokerNews and the Global Poker Index) are starting to heat-up. Jonathan Duhamel is still maintaining his early lead in two of the three races, but there are plenty of peopled in the chase pack including names like Phil Ivey, Faraz Jaka, Dan Kelly, David Sands, and Luca Pagano.

One player who is likely to be moving up the leader-board after a recent good run (and was a player to watch to begin with) is Steve O’Dwyer who recently final tabled the EPT Copenhagen Main Event and then won the WPT Denmark National Championship tournament.

With a full slate of tournaments on the schedule for March there could very well be a major shakeup in the rankings when we next update you in April. In addition to the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Championship, the March tournament calendar will also feature the Wynn Classic, a WSOP Circuit Series stop in Atlantic City, a WSOP Circuit Series stop in Rincon, the WPT Vienna, as well as the usual smaller tournament series on the calendar.

Bluff Magazine Player of the Year Leader-Board through March 5^th, 2012:

1.       Jonathan Duhamel — 684.80 points

2.       Oliver Speidel — 529.45 points

3.       John Dibella — 450.75 points

4.       Ruben Theo Visser — 406.60 points

5.       Faraz Jaka — 394.38 points

6.       Phil Ivey — 308.65 points

7.       Vadzim Kursevich — 306.00 points

8.       Kyle Julius — 299.25 points

9.       Leonid Bilokur — 288.00 points

10.   Ken Wong — 273.70 points

Cardplayer Magazine Player of the Year Leader-Board through March 5^th, 2012:

1.       John Dibella — 2,512 points

2.       Oliver Speidel — 2,500 points

3.       Jonathan Duhamel — 2,290 points

4.       Faraz Jaka — 2,200 points

5.       Sean Jazayeri — 2,100 points

6.       Daniel Kelly — 2,090 points

7.       David Sands — 2,022 points

8.       Kyle Julius — 2,000 points

9.       Vadzim Kursevich — 1,824 points

10.   Ken Wong - 1,750 points

Global Poker Index Player of the Year Leader-Board through March 5^th, 2012:

1.       Jonathan Duhamel — 552.10 points

2.       Faraz Jaka — 308.35 points

3.       Samuel Chartier — 305.80 points

4.       Jason Koon — 284.24 points

5.       Ruben Visser — 258.04 points

6.       Oliver Speidel — 238.23 points

7.       Daniel Chevalier — 228.36 points

8.       Corey Burbick — 228.03 points

9.       Luca Pagano — 227.52 points

10.   Erik Cajelais — 212.19 points

All three ranking systems use a different criterion to determine the Player of the Year:

• Cardplayer Magazine focuses on a player’s results over the course of the entire calendar year.
• Bluff Magazine takes into account a player’s results from the previous calendar year (weighted at about 50% of the current year)
• The Global Poker Index uses a players top cashes from different quarters of the year only, all other results are discounted