The Global Poker Index ended its 2021 year of rankings at the end of January 4, 2022. The Player of the Year races ended their calculations, and the standings for the year 2021 are final.
Prior to the end of 2021, there were some races still in play, especially on the national fronts. Even the Female Player of the Year and the Mid-Major POY leaderboards had the potential to change in recent weeks. But now that the last of the tournament results are in, the GPI announced the winners. And Ali Imsirovic topped the overall leaderboard to be the all-around 2021 Player of the Year.
Number One All Year
In June 2021, the Global Poker Index announced that it relaunched the Player of the Year rankings. Enough poker had restarted in 2021 to kick things back into gear. They tracked it back to January 1, 2021, and Ali Imsirovic was at the top of the Player of the Year leaderboard.
Imsirovic got comfortable, and he never relinquished that number one spot. He wasn’t out of danger, though. Chance Kornuth, Shannon Shorr, and Uri Reichenstein gave him a run for points. But the end of the year showed that Imsirovic did have it locked up.
The final standings were:
Ranking
Player
Points
1
Ali Imsirovic (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
3478.55
2
Chance Kornuth (USA)
3225.11
3
Shannon Shorr (USA)
3141.45
4
Uri Reichenstein (Israel) 3138.32
3114.29
5
Sergio Aido (Spain)
3090.55
6
Johan Guilbert (France)
3020.66
7
Chad Eveslage (USA)
3006.84
8
Sean Perry (USA)
2997.08
9
Brock Wilson (USA)
2981.38
10
Jason Koon
2969.76
Imsirovic is usually seated at a high-stakes table somewhere, but he branches out to play a range of buy-ins. And it paid off in 2021 for the POY title and his best year of live tournament poker to date. He earned $6,094,964 in live earnings last year, putting his career total at $15,050,881.
New Female POY Leaders
For the last three years – with the exception of 2020 when the pandemic interrupted rankings – Kristen Bicknell held the top spot on the GPI Female Player of the Year leaderboard. This year, things changed. One difference was that Bicknell’s anti-vaccination stance kept her from being allowed to play poker in some casinos. But there were players who did get vaccinated and played some of the best poker of their careers.
Nadya Magnus was the one who ended the year with the most points, followed by Kyna England, who just won the Mid-States Poker Tour Player of the Year award. And Katie Lindsay, one of the newest Americas Cardroom team pros, took third in 2021.
Ranking
Player
Points
1
Nadya Magnus (USA)
2435.43
2
Kyna England (USA)
2097.27
3
Katie Lindsay (USA)
1861.73
4
Sonia-Veronika Shashikhina (Russia)
1729.32
5
Vanessa Kade (Canada)
1632.92
6
Gloria Jackson (USA)
1539.18
7
Kristen Bicknell (Canada)
1519.19
8
Kathy Liebert (USA)
1517.58
9
JJ Liu (Taiwan)
1432.48
10
Kitty Kuo (Taiwan)
1415.69
Magnus had her best year at the live tournament tables, raking in $426,161 to bring her lifetime total to $1,274,316.
https://twitter.com/NadyaKGB/status/1478792670571077637?s=20
New Category, New POY
For the first time, the Global Poker Awards will honor the top poker player in the mid-major category. This allows players who compete in a lot of events under $2,500 buy-ins to receive honors. This was also the only category that was contested up until the very end. Finally, David Mzareulov of Azerbaijan eked it out past Logan Hewett of the US and Michael Rossitto of Italy. Americans comprise the rest of the top ten.
Ranking
Player
Points
1
David Mzareulov (Azerbaijan)
2361.21
2
Logan Hewett (USA)
2327.65
3
Michael Rossitto (Italy)
2313.97
4
Jesse Lonis (USA)
2302.33
5
Nick Pupillo (USA)
2242.76
6
Justin Zaki (USA)
2175.43
7
Aaron Massey (USA)
2164.22
8
Michael Wang (USA)
2160.94
9
Raminder Singh (USA)
2138.57
10
David Jackson (USA)
2116.34
Mzareulov had the best year of his poker career by far. Prior to 2021, his best year in live tournament poker was in 2019 when he won $38,952. In 2021, he earned $524,026. He not only won an event at the Prime Social Summer Series but he won his first WSOP Circuit ring in December at the Bike in Los Angeles.
https://twitter.com/PrimeSocialTX/status/1478844398322528256?s=20
56 National POYs
Any country in the world in which its top tournament player earns more than 1,000 GPI POY points in a single year, that country then rises to the level of crowning a GPI National Player of the Year. In 2021, there were 56 of them. The one with the most points for its winner was Bosnia & Herzegovina, due to global POY Ali Imsirovic topping that list. After that, it was the United States due to Chance Kornuth’s points.
The full list of National POY winners is:
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