Online Poker Sites Toplists & Reviews

The Bluff Magazine award is seen as the industry standard due to the fact it has been tweaked and fine-tuned over the past fie or six years so that it gives a sound representation of the best player of that particular year. Bluff use a special formula that takes into account the buy-in of the event, the number of entrants and the finishing position of the player in question. Also, only the top ten results of the year are taken into account so it levels the playing field somewhat when it comes to high volume players.

Using Bluff’s scoring system Euguene Katchalov is the 2011 Player of the Year having amassed 1,089.28 POY points throughout the twelve months of 2011. Katchalov’s year got off to a flying start when he won the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PCA for a cool $1,500,000 then cashing in the PCA Main Event before coming second in the $10,000 PCA High Roller. He also won a World Series of Poker bracelet, reached the final table of another WSOP event, final table bubbled the Six-handed Epic Poker League event, finished third in the EPT Barcelona Main Event and came second in a €2,000 side event during EPT Loutraki!

Just behind the Ukrainian was Bertrand «ElkY» Grospellier with 1,071.67 POY points. ElkY had an amazing year that was topped off by completing the Triple Crown of live titles. Making up the top ten are Ben Lamb, Matthew Waxman, Stephen O’Dwyer, Sam Trickett, Marvin Rettenmaier, Chris Moorman, Elio Fox and Pius Heinz.

The CardPlayer system basically awards points for any final table reached, as long as the tournament has a set number of players in it in relation to the buy-in. Using this system the Player of the Year is Ben Lamb with 6,036 POY points. Lamb completely crushed the 2011 WSOP in a way we probably will not ever see again. He was the runner-up in the $3,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and a week later he took down the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship. A few days later he reached the last two tables of arguably the toughest live tournament ever held the $10,000 Six-Handed Championship. Most players would take their foot off the gas at this point but Lamb is not most players, instead he entered the $50,000 Poker Players Championship and reached the final table before busting in eighth place. And last but certainly not least Lamb was the third place finisher in the Main Event! His winnings in 2011 alone were a staggering $5,352,970!

Trailing Lamb in the CardPlayer rankings were Moorman, Oleksii Kovalchuk, Rettenmaier, Sam Stein, Jason Mercier, Fox, Galen Hall, Katchalov and O’Dwyer.