More trophies is better
On February 22, the sixth GPI Global Poker Awards will be broadcast live on PokerGO from the PokerGO studio at Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. More trophies than ever before will be given out as organizers increase the number of awards to 38. Five recipients already know that they have won prizes.
Poker Player of the Year: David Coleman
Mid-Major Player of the Year: Han Feng
Female Player of the Year: Cherish Andrews
Most Weeks at GPI #1: Jesse Lonis
PokerGo Tour Player of the Year: Jeremy Ausmus
The majority of the remaining prizes have already been voted on by poker’s deep state/coastal elites but the results will not be know until the big night when poker fans worldwide will also have their voices heard as they choose the winners of Best Hand, Best Trophy, Best Live Stream, and Most Entertaining Player. Other awards which will be bestowed upon deserving members of the community are The Hendon Mob Award (prediction: Dominick French), the Charitable/Community Initiative, Poker Icon and the GPI Award of Merit.
Comesky leads the way
The 2023 Rising Star in Content Creation Caitlin Comeskey leads the way this year with four nominations. She was short-listed for three gongs last year, taking home the prize for Best Short-Form Content Creator. It would not be a shock if she were to add to her trophy cabinet as she is up for Best X Personality, Best Short-Form Video Media Content, Peoples’ Choice for Most Entertaining Player and once again for Best Short-Form Content Creator.
Three people are up for three awards this year – Joe Stapleton, Marle Spragg, and Barry Carter. Stapleton is in the running for Best On-Air Talent, Podcast for ‘Poker In The Ears,’ and Book for his comic ‘Trapped’. Spragg is up for X Personality, Best Short-Form Creator, and Short-Form Video. Carter is in the mix for Best X Personality, Book for Beyond GTO, and Podcast as the beloved third wheel of ‘The Chip Race.’
Double nominees include the Irish Poker Open (Best Event and Stand-Alone Festival), Barry Carter support-human Dara O’Kearney (Book and Podcast), Renaissance man enjoying a renaissance Barny Boatman (Best Hand and Final Table Performance), cup enthusiast Abby Merk (Breakout content creator and Short-Form Video), loose cannon and even looser… no, not gonna go there… Nikki Limo (Best Short-Form Creator and Short-Form Video), alleged kid poker Daniel Negreanu (Best Vlog and Final Table Performance), and dickiest of napkins David Lappin (Best Podcast and Journalist).
let’s take a look at the Global Poker Award nominees that honour the players
So, you know what that means? It means my customary series of pish articles which breaks down and makes predictions for the Global Poker Awards is now a bonafide piece of journalism, regardless of the fact that I wrote most of it while swilling gin in the bath. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the Global Poker Award nominees that honour the players, without whom poker would just be a bunch of poker bots playing against in-house poker bots.
MOST ENTERTAINING PLAYER (FAN’S CHOICE)
- Caitlin Comeskey (USA)
- Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo (Argentina)
- Michael “Texas Mike” Moncek (USA)
- Seth “Sethy Poker” Moeller (USA)
Formerly ‘Poker Personality of the Year,’ this award has received a name change presumably owing to one past winner possessing little to no personality. Unquestionably, all four of these players are great fun to watch. Who doesn’t love Lococo’s wild style and intimidating table presence, Moncek’s heart and courage (and 99% VPIP), Moeller’s endless supply of funny sketches, and Comeskey’s transformative turns and uncanny ability to capture the essence of a situation?
All are deserving for different reasons but I suspect this might go to Lococo who burst onto the scene in 2021 with his seventh place finish in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main, who took down Eureka Prague in 2022, and whose triumphant performance in the Triton Million this year was as fierce as one of his battle raps.
BEST HAND (FAN’S CHOICE)
- Barny Boatman makes hero call on way to EPT victory on PokerStars Live
- Beer is raining down on him! Bracelet on the line on PokerGO
- The Keating Show – 2.4M pot during Million Dollar Game on Hustler Casino Live
- Xuan Liu stars in wild hand at The Lodge
This is a hard one to judge. Boatman makes a hero-call with his *tournament* life on the line. Spitale spikes a dramatic winner to clinch a bracelet and gets showered by beer. Keating wins an absolute monster pot with the nuts on Hustler’s Million Dollar Cash Game. Liu plays a crazy hand, presumably applying some voodoo magic to get an inexplicable fold from the nut flush in a 4-way pot.
I love Liu’s hand and reviewed it with her on The Chip Race and wrote it up in a VegasSlotsOnline News article but I think this will go to Boatman who dug deep and found a massive call with everything on the line on the final table of EPT Paris.
PLAYERS’ CHOICE FOR TOUGHEST OPPONENT
This category was voted on by the Top 100 players on the GPI as of January 3, 2025.
- Stephen Chidwick (England)
- Isaac Haxton (USA)
- Jason Koon (USA)
- Adrian Mateos (ESP)
Naturally, the players have always been in the best position to judge who is the toughest, apart from that one year when they gave it to Ali Imsirovic. In truth, any one of these four titans would be a worthy winner of this prize. Chidwick is going for a three-peat in this category and he certainly made the case in 2024, adding $8.8m in live winnings to his pile.
Jason Koon had a modest year by the high standards he sets himself, cashing cheques for $3.4m. Isaac Haxton won three tournaments and posted $3.7m in live cashes. The person that I think might nab the prize this year, however, is Spanish Conquistador Adrian Mateos who was consistency personified with three wins, six 2nds, and four 3rd place finishes, winning $13.1m in prize money along the way.
BEST FINAL TABLE PERFORMANCE
- Barny Boatman (England), EPT Paris
- Daniel Negreanu (Canada), WSOP Poker Players Championship
- Stephen Song (USA), EPT Barcelona
- Scott Stewart (USA), WPT World Championship
Noticeable absentee from this list is WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Tamayo whose win was mired in the controversy which ultimately turned into LaptopGate. To take nothing away from the outstanding performances of crusher Stephen Song and future Budweiser brand ambassador Scott Stewart, the bookies would make this one a two-horse race.
Negreanu took down the prestigious Poker Player’s Championship, ending a sixteen year Vegas WSOP bracelet drought during which time he fired twice as many bullets as anyone else. Regardless, I think the trophy will go to Boatman who bewitched, bullied and beguiled his way to victory in the French capital. The Hendon Mobster is one of the game’s most fundamentally decent human beings and this EPT win confirms his legend status.
GPI BREAKOUT PLAYER
- Boris Angelov
- Mark Travis Egbert
- Rania Nasreddine
- Noel Rodriguez
Boris Angelov cashed 30 times for $3.6m, coming 5th in the WSOP Main Event, winning the $10K Mystery Bounty at EPT Barcelona and finishing runner-up in EPT Monte Carlo. Mark Travis Egbert cashed 40 times for $1.4m, winning 3 WSOPC rings, taking 3rd in the WPT Rolling Thunder and calling off the year with victory in the $25K WPT Alpha8 in the Wynn.
Rania Nasreddine cashed 17 times for $1.2m, making back-to-back EPT final tables in Monte Carlo and Barcelona where she finished 3rd and 4th respectively. Noel Rodriguez cashed 45 times for $2.1m including 2nd place finishes in the $25K WSOP Highroller and WSOP $3K and a 3rd place finish in the $25K WPT Alpha8 in the Wynn.
People will debate the way that this category is defined and that’s fine. What is not up for debate is the worthiness of this quartet who all put down a marker in 2024. I think Nasreddine’s back-to-back is an astonishing feat but this one has the Bulgarian Angelov’s name written all over it.
Next week in Part 2, I will look at the nominations for audio/visual content creators.