After twelve months of combat on the baize around the world, you would think that there would be some consensus regarding the two Player of the Year races. Alas, that might be a hope that will never come to pass. For 2025, the two major POY countdowns – CardPlayer Magazine and the Global Poker Index – came to different conclusions as to who was the best in tournament poker for the year.
CardPlayer Magazine Crowns Jesse Lonis as POY
In one of the closest finishes in CardPlayer Magazine history, Jesse Lonis held off the challenges of Punnat Punsri and Alex Foxen to take down the Player of the Year award from the magazine.
Lonis had a decent finish to the 2025 season, and he did it in the Bahamas to boot. For the World Series of Poker Paradise, Lonis was able to rack up four deep finishes and accumulate over half a million dollars in earnings. There was one problem, however; none of those finishes gave him any points toward the POY race. Lonis thus finished with 10,687 points for the season and had to hope that nobody would make a run.
That…did not happen.
Punsri had an outstanding close to 2025, and he did it around the world. At the Asian Poker Tour Championship in Taipei, Punsri made two final tables that jacked up his yearly score. That wasn’t good enough for Punnat, however, as he ventured to the Bahamas and picked up another final table score in the Triton Poker Series $125,000 Seven Max No Limit Hold’em event. If that weren’t enough, Punsri then journeyed to Las Vegas for the World Poker Tour Championship and made the final table of a $25,000 tournament.
It was not enough, however. Although he racked up 1,366 points in just the last month of 2025, it only brought Punsri’s total points to 10,540, 147 points behind Lonis. Foxen’s juice ran out in the last month of the season, not earning any POY points through the close of the season to fall short with 9,371 points.
As 2025 ends, here is how the Top Ten for the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year race will end:
1. Jesse Lonis (Little Falls, NY), 10,687 points
2. Punnat Punsri (Bangkok, THA), 10,540
3. Alex Foxen (Cold Spring Harbor, NY), 9,371
4. Quan Zhou (Harbin, CHN), 8,704
5. Artur Martirosian (Voronezh, RUS), 8,514
6. Klemens Roiter (Vienna, AUS), 8,362
7. Brandon Wilson (Chicago, IL), 7,868
8. Stephen Chidwick (Deal, GBR), 7,254
9. Andrew Ostapchenko (Carlsbad, CA), 7,248
10. Sam Soverel (Palm Beach Gardens, FL), 7147
Punnat Punsri Charges to GPI Player of the Year Title
His charge might not have been enough on the CardPlayer board, but Punnat Punsri was able to catch Lonis on the Global Poker Index’s Player of the Year race. Because of the way that the GPI POY distributes points – only the best thirteen finishes for a player count – Punsri had some room to make a charge. He would do that, but it would be the last couple of weeks of 2025 before he would pick up those points.
Punsri’s work at the WSOP Super Main Event in the Bahamas and the $25K High Roller on the WPT World Championship schedule pushed him past Lonis in the race and to the GPI POY championship. How close was it? Punsri’s 4,458.06 points clipped Lonis (4,450.65) by a mere 7.5 points.
It was a POY that came down between Punsri and Lonis. Martirosian charged up to the third-place slot on the GPI POY, while Foxen’s lack of points cost him a podium finish. As 2025 comes to a close, here is how the Top Ten for the Global Poker Index Player of the Year race will end:
1. Punnat Punsri (Bangkok, THA), 4,458.06 points
2. Jesse Lonis (Little Falls, NY), 4,450.65
3. Artur Martirosian (Voronezh, RUS), 4,323.49
4. Alex Foxen (Cold Spring Harbor, NY), 4,295.95
5. Brandon Wilson (Chicago, IL), 4,219.89
6. Quan Zhou (Harbin, CHN), 4,016.43
7. José ‘Nacho’ Barbero (Buenos Aires, ARG), 4,001.86
8. Klemens Roiter (Vienna, AUS), 3,997.79
9. Daniel Rezaei (Leibnitz, AUS), 3,978.55
10. Thomas Boivin (Belgium), 3,973.15
Never in the history of the Player of the Year races has there been the international representation as in 2025. Nine different nations are represented among the thirteen men who appeared on one or both POY lists.
Kristen Foxen Once Again Women’s Player of the Year Champion
It is beginning to sound like a broken record at this point. Kristen Foxen once again has topped the field of women to capture the Women’s Player of the Year title, and it was not even close. Foxen accumulated 3,388.27 points over the span of 2025, vastly outpacing another former Women’s POY, Cherish Andrews, who could only come up with 2,993.20 points for the battle.
Some other familiar names were down the leaderboard for 2025, including Victoria Livshitz, Ebony Kenney, Jessica Vierling, and Kitty Kuo. There were some newcomers to the rankings who might make more noise in 2026, including Candy Lin, Cecile Ticherfatine, Rania Nasreddine, and Dusti Smith. For the record, players such as Maria Konnikova, Esther Taylor, Loni Harwood, and Leo Margets, were just off the Top Ten, which ran out as such:
1. Kristen Foxen, 3,388.27 points
2. Cherish Andrews, 2,993.20
3. Candy Lin, 2,598.85
4. Victoria Livshitz, 2,551.68
5. Cecile Ticherfatine, 2,456.33
6. Ebony Kenney, 2,230. 06
7. Jessica Vierling, 2,176.08
8. Kitty Kuo, 2,057.41
9. Rania Nasreddine, 1,949.77
10. Dusti Smith, 1,946.86
We can reset all these scores in the next couple of days. The 2025 tournament poker season has ended, and congratulations to all the champions. For those who might not have performed well, 2026 is just around the corner, and the 2026 tournament poker season will begin anew!
