Global Poker Index’s Player of the Year races are going down to the wire this year as a handful of players are still in position to earn enough points to win the honors.
GPI will make the races official when it announces the winners on January 4, after they input the results from all the qualifying tournaments that bring 2022 to an end. With a bunch of events still left to take place, the players on top of the leaderboards will have quite a sweat while ringing in the New Year.
Keep an eye on the remaining tourneys at the Fun in the Sun Poker Open at Seminole Hard Rock in Florida, The Last Poker Series at The Lodge in Texas, the Winter Mini Series at the Garden Casino in LA, and elsewhere to see how the races for GPI Player of the Year, GPI Female Player of the Year, and GPI Mid-Major Player of the Year unfolds.
The contenders
Stephen Song soared to the top of both the general 2022 Player of the Year and the Mid-Majors Player of the Year by winning the $1,000 WPT Prime event right before Christmas. That win was worth a significant 422.40 points thanks to the enormous field of 5,430. It vaulted Song from 15th to first in the general Player of the Year race, and from 21st to first in the Mid-Major column.
That puts him only 17.24 points ahead of Adam Hendrix, 46.25 points ahead of Jeremy Ausmus, and 69.94 ahead of Chad Eveslage for the award that was won by Ali Ismirovic last year. In fact, anyone in the top 10 has a chance to leap ahead of Song if they take down any of a number of the remaining tournaments left in the year.
Those players are Farid Jattin (-77.05), Micheal Watson (-114.28), Chance Kornuth (-120.04), William Foxen (-150.63), Sean Winter (-150.67), and Stephen Chidwick (-220.11). Foxen won the award in 2018 and 2019.
In the Mid-Major category, which only tabulates points in tourneys with buy-ins of $2,500 or less, Song sits on the top with 2580.18 points, just 128.56 points in front of Angela Jordison, 165.08 ahead of Julien Alexan Sitbon, and 181.1 in front of Jared Ingles.
A win or a few deep runs to close out 2022 for any of these players could put them on top, depending on the number of players they had to beat and the buy-in.
Women’s race may be over
Jordison was also in a battle for the Female Player of the Year, but is 309.72 points away from the current leader, Cherish Andrews, who earned 2,835.14 points in a breakout year that saw her win her first World Series of Poker Circuit bracelet in a $1,000 event on WSOP.com in Pennsylvania and a WPT event.
Like Song, it was Andrews’ performance in December that put her on top — and it all happened at WPT World Championship events.
She began her run on December 16, finishing sixth in the $2,500 event for $78K and 311.27 points. Two days later, she was the runner-up in the $10K high-roller event for another $259K and 328.17 points. The next day, she won the $1K event for $132K and 325.97 points.
She earned 965.41 points in that week alone, which most likely earned her the 2022 GPI Female Player of the Year award.
The winners will receive their trophies at the GPI Awards, which will be held at the Aria sometime next year.
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