Global Poker Awards 2025 - Part 4: A/V Content Creators

PokerStars and WPT lead the way

All around Las Vegas right now, poker players are losing weight and for once, it’s not for a prop bet with Bill Perkins. On February 22, poker’s brightest stars will squeeze themselves into aspirational formal wear and descend upon the PokerGO Studios for a night of glitz, glamour and… ok, yeah, I think most of them are there for the free bar. Hosted by the dapper Jeff Platt and the elegant Drea Renee, the 6th Annual Global Poker Awards will honor excellence and hopefully some mediocrity, too, if everyone on the voting panel received the edible arrangement that I sent them.

PokerStars will need to book out half the venue as it completely dominates the shortlists

If the nominees are divided into tables based on their company affiliation at the awards, PokerStars will need to book out half the venue as it completely dominates the shortlists. Joe Stapleton and Marle Spragg have three nods each. Barny Boatman has two. Add to that Ben Spragg, Lex Veldhuis, Francine Watson, Toby Stone, Kerry-Jane Craigie, Alejandro Lococo, the Barcelona EPT, and “The Big Game On Tour.” It would also not be unreasonable to count the Irish Open’s two nominations and freelancers Danny Maxwell and Nick O’Hara as part of their haul. In case that wasn’t enough, Jason Koon and quad-nominee Caitlin Comeskey have recently been added to their ranks for a total of 25 shots at glory.

The WPT also managed a decent haul with eleven nominations – again being generous with my interpretations here – they have Brad Owen, Jamie Kerstetter, Jonathan Van Fleet, Matt Savage, Lance Bradley, Rachel Kay Winter, Enrique Malfavon, the Ultimate Stack, the Mike Sexton Trophy, the Prime Tour and the $5M Freeroll all in contention for honors.

WSOP, Triton and Unibet Poker the best of the rest

The best of the rest are the World Series of Poker with six nominations for Gregory Chochon, Jesse Fullen, Drew Amato, the Main Event, the WSOP Circuit and the WSOP bracelet. Triton has four for Andy Wong, Luca Vivaldi, Best Trophy, and Best Stream. They could also at least partly bring Ali Nejad and Nick Schulman into their tent.

Unibet Poker is up in four categories with “The Chip Race” up for Podcast, ambassadors Dara O’Kearney and David Lappin up for Best Book and Best Journalist, respectively, and as the Main and High Roller event sponsors of the Malta Poker Festival. PokerGO has three shots: Best Stream, Best Trophy, and for the episodic Series “No Gamble, No Future.” They also have partial dibs on Schulman, Nejad, and fellow on-air talent Jeff Platt.

PokerNews has three contenders: Best Podcast, Connor Richards, and a strong connection to Abby Merk’s Rising Star nomination. Winamax is represented by Toughest Opponent nominee Adrian Mateos, the episodic series “Inside The Mind of a Poker Pro,” and its video content “Davidi Kitai: Life of a Genius.” Flying the flag for GGPoker are two nominations for Daniel Negreanu and one for Greg “Greg Goes All-In” Liow. Both The Wynn (Ray Pulford, Ryan Beauregard, Wynn Millions) and Rozvadov (Federico Brunato, Stream, and Poker Room) also have three chances each. Both PokerStrategy (Barry Carter and Váklev Dušek) and PokerOrg (Brad Willis and Sarah Herring) have two.

would only consist of minimally amusing, maximally indulgent meta-punditry

Now let’s take a look at the nominations in the categories honoring poker’s content creators working in an audio or visual medium, without whom poker-tainment would only consist of minimally amusing, maximally indulgent meta-punditry stretched out agonizingly across quadrilogies of paid-by-the-word articles.

BEST ON-AIR TALENT

Jeffrey Platt
Joe Stapleton
Nick Schulman
Ali Nejad

Three out of last year’s four broadcaster nominees are up for on-air talent with Joe Stapleton replacing Henry Kilbane on the list. Jeff Platt is a consummate all-rounder, able to commentate, present, interview, sideline report, and Twitch stream. PokerGO and the WSOP are lucky to have him in their ranks. Joe Stapleton is a commentator, presenter, and podcast host, bringing his comedy stylings to the PokerStars live coverage, the PokerStars “Big Game On Tour,” and “Poker In the Ears.”

In contrast, Nick Schulman and Ali Nejad are specialists, both occupying specifically defined roles within a commentary duo. One of the game’s great players himself, Schulman brings a level of analysis that trumps everyone else’s. He also does it in the smoothest, most mellifluous voice, which both sizzles and pops. Nejad is the best play-by-play commentator in the business, the enunciator-in-chief, the segue shinobi, possessing a silver tongue and a gilded vocabulary.

This is a tough category to predict, with all four contenders doing stellar work in 2024. Interestingly, this award has never had a repeat winner, with past recipients Maria Ho, Schulman, Platt, James Hartigan, and Nejad taking turns. In the spirit of sharing it around then, my prediction is that the versatile Joe Stapleton will receive the gong.

BEST STREAMER

Jonathan Van Fleet “apestyles”
Bert Stevens “girafganger7”
Benjamin Spragg “Spraggy”
Lex Veldhuis “LexVeldhuis”

Three of last year’s four nominees are once again on the short-list with Jonathan Van Fleet nicking Kevin Martin’s spot this time around. Last year was undoubtedly the Year of the Giraffe on Twitch, but this year it feels like a much more open field.

Van Fleet could win his first award in this category. Veldhuis could win his third after claiming this prize in 2018 and 2019. Girafganger could go back-to-back after exploding onto the scene in 2023. However, I reckon that the talented and charismatic Benjamin Spragg will make it a double after taking this award home in 2021.

BEST VLOGGER

Corey Eyring “corey_eyring”
Daniel Negreanu “dnegspoker”
Brad Owen “BradOwenPoker”
Alexander Seibt “Wolfgang_Poker”
Masato Yokosama

There are five nominees in this category, four of whom were also in the mix last year. With the 2023 winner Jamon Burton stepping aside, Corey Eyring, Daniel Negreanu, Brad Owen, and Alexander “Wolfgang” Seibt are joined by the massively popular Japanese vlogger Masato Yokosawa.

Owen is the only former winner, having received this prize in 2021. His vlogs are iconic in the space. In terms of numbers, Yokosawa finds the widest audiences. Negreanu and Eyring post big numbers, too. Seibt is perhaps better known for his short-form clips, but there’s no doubting the slickness of his edits in longer form, as well.

My hunch is this one boils down to a tête-à-tête between Negreanu’s WSOP adventures and Eyring’s confessions, with the latter picking up the gong.

RISING STAR IN CONTENT CREATION

Václav Dušek is a tireless content machine who pops up at live events in all corners of the globe. John Kasen’s funny skits remind me of John Hodgman. Cup-aficionado Abby Merk is prolific. David Richards’ “poker with a purpose” content is as solid as his washboard abs.

Personally, I would love to see Dušek take this one down. He’s a perpetually positive and enthusiastic presence wherever he goes and his sense of humor is nicely off-center. However, having burst onto the scene in 2024, Merk is a shoo-in for this award.

BEST EPISODIC POKER SERIES

GALFOND – Poker Docuseries
Inside the Mind of a Pro (Dans la tête d’un pro) by Winamax
No Gamble, No Future by PokerGO
The Big Game On Tour by PokerStars

Phil and Farah Galfond’s docuseries was an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of the poker power couple. It was certainly an interesting creative choice to give it a reality TV sensibility. “Dans la tête d’un pro” follows the Winamax ambassadors as they compete at the 2023 WPT World Championship. Most of Season 4 of “No Gamble, No Future” aired in 2024 with Brent Hanks and Jeff Platt flitting between poker, sports betting, daily fantasy sports, and random degeneracy.

I predict the winner, however, will be “The Big Game On Tour by PokerStars.” The show was rebooted 13 years after it went off the air and it really delivered with loose cannons Nikki Limo and Lily Newhouse bringing a lot to the format as they tussled with the top pros and celebrities. The show is a throwback to the good ol’ days of tightly edited and nicely packaged poker content.

BEST MEDIA CONTENT: VIDEO

“Behind The Swings: The Legend of Isildur1” was a fun look at Viktor Blom’s meteoric rise through the lens of Phil Galfond’s own ascent in the online poker world. “Davidi Kitai: Life of a Genius” was Winamax’s well-produced origin story of Belgium’s live pro extraordinaire.

Written, directed, and produced by accomplished poker documentarian Michael Bailey, “The Ultimate Stack” adopted the nifty structure of following one player’s stack as it got handed over from player to player until the end of the tournament.

My favorite of the quartet, however, was the BBC-produced Greg Clark joint which followed Scottish pros Niall Farrell and David Docherty to Prague, Monte Carlo, Dublin, and Las Vegas, capturing the vagaries and peculiarities of the poker circus.

BEST MEDIA CONTENT: SHORT-FORM VIDEO

Jesse Fullen is a breath of fresh air in the poker world. He is mischievously fun, always smiling and a great storyteller. His reminiscences about Jack Binion were a delight. Spragg got into character as the dealer who is a stickler for the rules and etiquette. I’m shocked Comeskey wasn’t nominated for her T-levels or ACR chat group video, but she and Merk combined nicely with a cameo from Jared Jaffee in this amusing skit.

The best short-form video from those nominated, however, was Nikki Limo’s hilariously written and performed bit satirizing the tired stereotypes of what it’s like to be a woman at the poker table.

BEST SHORT-FORM CONTENT CREATOR

Gregory Liow “Greg Goes All In”
Marle Spragg
Nikki Limo
Caitlin Comeskey

Our ever-shortening attention spans crave fast content. Two minutes? Too long. We want snappy, un-swipe-past-able videos and we want them funny as hell. That is what this elite foursome provides time and time again with their wonderfully creative and clever skits.

Liow’s content always bangs. Spragg always makes funny observations about both the live and online poker world. Limo is an experienced professional comedienne who really found her poker sweet spot this year.

The winner, I suspect, will be awards-darling Comeskey, whose impression work, in particular, captures the essence of a person and situation. A brave performer, she puts herself on the line for her art and I look forward to every video she drops.

BEST MEDIA CONTENT: PHOTO

Drew Amato: “The Ghost of Jason Mercier”
Enrique Malfavon: “The Thrill of Victory”
Danny Maxwell: “Barny Goatman”
Rachel Kay Winter: “Misery, Not Mystery”

Photographers working in poker understand what a challenging environment it is. They have next to no control over the elements and the only thing more unreliable than the lighting are the subjects, often uncooperative, insouciant poker players who immediately pull weird faces when they realize there is a camera pointing at them. It’s actually a minor miracle then that we have so many superb photographers working in our industry, capable of capturing moments of posterity with both emphasis and nuance.

Drew Amato got playful with exposure as he conjured a spectral image of poker pro Jason Mercier. Enrique Malfavon got himself into the scrum as Scott Stewart was surrounded by friends at the moment of victory in the WPT World Championship. I think, however, that this will be a face-off between the photographer who won last year and a photographer who has been nominated for three of the last four years.

The superb Rachel Kay Winter depicts a hilariously evil and literally priceless moment when Jason Christopher realized he was the recipient of the Misery Bounty on the WPT $5M Freeroll final table. Personally though, I don’t think it’s possible to beat Danny Maxwell’s sublime black and white photograph of Barny Boatman. In what could be a still from a Jim Jarmusch movie, Maxwell taps into something raw and emotional, elevating it above the rest for me. It just hits different.

BEST PODCAST

Thinking Poker (Andrew Brokos, Carlos Welch)
The Chip Race Poker Podcast (David K Lappin, Dara O’Kearney, Barry Carter for Unibet Poker)
Pokernews Podcast (Kyna England, Chad Holloway, Mike Holtz)
Poker in the Ears (James Hartigan, Joseph Stapleton for PokerStars)

The Oscars save Best Picture for last, the ultimate honor, the most prestigious award. It’s much like Best Podcast – in this series of articles – not at the actual ceremony when it will probably take place offscreen during an ad for the PokerGO Tour Mixed Games Event #3 livestream.

Three of last year’s nominees are once again in contention as “Only Friends” makes way for the newly rebooted “PokerNews Podcast” in the final four. The 2021 winner “Poker in the Ears” is nominated for a fourth consecutive year. The 2018 and 2023 victor “The Chip Race” has its hat in the ring for a record fifth time.

My pick, however, is “Thinking Poker” for the same reasons I gave in my equivalent piece last year and that we gave in our acceptance speech last year. It is the OG poker podcast and it is long overdue some love and recognition. Andrew Brokos and Carlos Welch are two of poker’s true gentlemen and I sincerely hope that they take this one down.

The Essential Guide to the GPI Global Poker Awards 2025 – Part 4: Content Creators Working in an Audio or Visual Medium