This week’s poker news starts off with a 2020 wrap-up of sorts. We have a couple of year-end awards that were handed out, so that’s where we’ll start our recap of the news.
Imsirovic Wins Card Player Player Of The Year Award For 2021
Ali Imsirovic (pictured above) has come such a long way since starting his poker career out at the young age of 18. Fast forward eight years and suddenly he is the 2021 Card Player Player of the Year champion. On top of that, he was able to win the PokerGO Tour Player of the Year award. In 2021 alone, Imsirovic had made it into 30 POY qualified tables, one short of the record that was held by Jake Schindler. Out of those tables, he won 14 POY-qualified titles. This went down as a new record, with the previous high being set at 10 by Justin Bonomo.
In total, Imsirovic had picked up over $5.9 million in POY earnings in just this past year. He had 8,058 total Player of the Year points at the end as well, with the second-place finisher being a whopping 2,978 behind him.
There aren’t many people who are able to do what Imsirovic just did and it seems like he is just getting started.
Ferro Wins World Poker Tour Player of the Year in Season XIX
The World Poker Tour Season XIX has just come to an end and Jake Ferro was able to emerge as the Player of the Year for the series. Ferro had positioned himself nicely with a high ranking but he took his game to the next level once he competed in the 2021 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic event. He earned an additional 300 points for finishing in 14th and it gave him an extra bump to come out on top.
Across three different money finishes in the WPT, he came away with approximately $669,540 in earnings. His largest came from the 2021 WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open event, which saw him bring in the majority of his money with a $573,605 payday.
The next season of the World Poker Tour is set to start later in the month over at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The main event should be running from January 21st all the way to the 26th.
Punsri Claims Back-to-Back High Roller Poker Tournament Victories
2022 has been really nice so far for Punnat Punsri. The Thai poker player started off his year by competing in the Venetian High Roller $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event and came away on top. He had to overcome a field of 34 total entries to claim the largest prize at $118,037.
He continued forward by taking his talents into the Venetian High Roller #2, the same exact event. The result was much of the same, he overcame a field of 37 entries and walked away with $133,200 for his win.
With those two quick victories in 2022, Punsri leads all competitors in the PokerGO Tour race with 251 points. He is also pretty high up on the Card Player Player of the Year leaderboards for 2022, earning 480 points already. He is actually in the lead for that race as we speak.