Fifth Global Poker Awards Set for February 24
It’s that time of year again. The Global Poker Index (GPI) and The Hendon Mob (THM) coordinate to host the Global Poker Awards, with this year marking the fifth one. It is a chance to honor the best in the poker industry, complete with a ceremony and red carpet experience.
This year, PokerGO will again host the festivities. And the evening will be available on a livestream when it happens on Saturday, February 24.
POY Winners Announced
There are three awards that are always known ahead of the Global Poker Awards. During the first week of January, GPI announces the winners of the previous year’s Player of the Year races.
The 2023 POY was Bin Weng, an American poker pro who has been on fire in tournaments. He captured the overall Player of the Year title by a sizeable margin. Weng started the year by winning the Borgata Return Main Event for a cool million dollars, won the WSOP Circuit Las Vegas Main Event in February, followed by the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Main Event, WPT Every One for One Drop for $2.2M, the Wynn Fall Classic Mystery Bounty, and the WPT World Championship High Roller. His total earnings for 2023 came to $6,647,556.
The top five on the overall POY list consisted of:
- Bin Weng (USA) 5,008.99 points
- Jose “Nacho” Barbero (Argentina) 4,387.72 points
- Tony “Ren” Lin (China) 4,260.94 points
- Isaac Haxton (USA) 4,168.62 points
- Daniel Tang (Hong Kong) 4,107.14 points
The female POY went to Kristin Foxen (formerly Bicknell). It was her fourth POY win, though she missed winning the last few years. It was another competitive year for the women of poker, but Foxen worked her way to the top again.
The top five POY women were:
- Kristen Foxen (Canada) 2,970.93 points
- Nadya Magnus (USA) 2,566.97 points
- Hui Chen “Kitty” Kuo (Taiwan) 2,402.78 points
- Victoria Livschitz (USA) 2,242.02 points
- Maria Ho (USA) 2,095.09 points
Finally, the mid-major category was a close race to the finish for POY honors. Nick Pupillo did get there in the end, but there were many players in contention for much of the year.
- Nick Pupillo (USA) 2,819.77 points
- Preston McEwen (USA) 2,777.98 points
- William Kopp (USA) 2,693.59 points
- Ankit Ahuja (India) 2,652.64 points
- Blake Bohn (USA) 2,540.31 points
Award of Merit Announced
The GPI Award of Merit is one that acknowledges someone or something in poker that elevated the game. Maria Konnikova won the award for the year 2021, primarily because of the success of her mainstream book The Biggest Bluff. In addition to the book, she began working with PokerStars as a poker ambassador, bringing even more attention to poker.
For 2023, the GPI Award of Merit goes to Game of Gold, the online poker reality show that was a hit with poker players around the world. The show came about when GGPoker bought Poker After Dark from PokerGO and developed a show loosely based on Poker After Dark.
Game of Gold featured a number of GGPoker pros and ambassadors, like Daniel Negreanu and Jason Koon, as well as big names like Maria Ho, Fedor Holz, Daniel Cates, Josh Arieh, David Williams, and Kyna England. In the end, Maria Ho won the show.
🎬 It had the entire poker community talking about it and glued to their screens...
— Global Poker Index (@gpi) January 11, 2024
🌐♣️🏆 Announcing our very first winner of the 5th #GlobalPokerAwards - congratulations to @GGPoker on Game of Gold, winner of the GPI Award of Merit! pic.twitter.com/TP5gKKoC62
More Awards to Be Announced
The majority of events will be announced at the Global Poker Awards. Many involve voting from a panel of industry representatives, though most nominees had been determined by votes from the public.
Poker fans will be able to choose several winners, specifically:
- Fans’ Choice for Most Entertaining Player
- Best Hand
- Best Trophy
- Best Live Stream Production
The players themselves – the top 100 in the rankings – will choose the Players Choice for Toughest Opponent Award.
Stay tuned for the live (and free) Global Poker Awards broadcast on February 24, made available by PokerGO. And we will recap the full list of winners after the livestream.
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