It appears that the coveted Card Player Magazine Player of the Year award is going to come right down to the wire in 2010, with two players having pulled away from the rest of the field, Dwyte Pilgrim and Tom Marchese. Although, there are a few players in that second group that could get back into the race with a big result: John Juanda, Jeffrey Papola, or Sorel Mizzi could vault back into contention should Pilgrim and Marchese cool off.
Here is a look at the top 5 players on the leader-board from CardPlayer.com:
- Dwyte Pilgrim: 5,576 points, 5 wins, 13 final tables, and $1,074,997 in prize-money
- Thomas Marchese: 5,246 points, 1 win, 7 final tables, and $1,773,196 in prize-money
- Jeffrey Papola: 3,870 points, 1 win, 3 final tables, and $1,176,919 in prize-money
- Sorel Mizzi: 3,862 points, 4 wins, 10 final tables, and $1,289,036 in prize-money
- John Juanda: 3,717 points, 0 wins, 5 final tables, and $1,598,858 in prize-money
The POY award looked to belong to Sorel Mizzi after a torrid start to 2010, but has been blanked since June, when he finished 6th in a WSOP Stud tournament. Mizzi’s fall has catapulted both Pilgrim and Marchese into the lead, both poker pros having phenomenal and consistent 2010 campaigns.
Marchese, known as “KingofCards” at the online poker tables won the inaugurial NAPT Venetian tournament, and has found himself at the final table of a number of major poker tournaments like the Borgata Winter Open, The Wynn Classic, the EPT Grand Final High-Roller tournament, a WSOP Final Table, and most recently at the EPT London Main Event.
Pilgrim has racked up most of his points in smaller events –taking the quantity over quality approach—and has been the king of the WSOP Circuit Series over the past couple of years. Pilgrim not only continued his success Circuit Series success in 2010, he also captured a WPT title at the Borgata. Pilgrim’s win at the Borgata Poker Open was his first win in a tournament with a large starting field, and put to rest the rumor that Dwyte could only win the smaller tournaments –not to mention nearly doubling his lifetime earnings.
Juanda has come on like gangbusters thanks to his runner-up finish at the EPT London Main Event, and JJ is definitely capable of hammering out another big win before the end of 2010, which could be enough to overtake Pilgrim and Marchese should they falter down the stretch.
Past winners of the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year Award include:
- Men Nguyen (1997)
- T. J. Cloutier (1998)
- Tony Ma (1999)
- David Pham (2000)
- Men Nguyen (2001)
- T. J. Cloutier (2002)
- Men Nguyen (2003)
- Daniel Negreanu (2004)
- Men Nguyen (2005)
- Michael Mizrachi (2006)
- David Pham (2007)
- John Phan (2008)
- Eric Baldwin (2009)
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