While he has maintained a solid lead on many of the Player of the Year leaderboards since his February/March rush, Paul Volpe is now facing some serious competition as the poker world turns its attention to the World Series of Poker and its seven weeks of competition.
On the Bluff Magazine POY, Volpe’s once dominant lead has shrunk to almost nothing due to the recent run of Daniel Negreanu. Volpe (with 638.22 points) now only has slightly more than a 25 point lead after Negreanu (612.68) made one final table at the World Series of Poker Asia/Pacific before he came back to take down the $10,000 Main Event. With those two finishes, Negreanu rocketed up the charts to take over the second place slot on the Bluff table.
Joining those two men in the Top Five are some other newcomers to the list. Aaron Lim currently holds down the third place position and, with his 606.65 points, could be poised to strike if he takes part in the WSOP and does well. Steven Silverman, who tacked a deep run at the World Poker Tour World Championship (finishing in 14th place) along with his victory at the European Poker Tour Grand Final High Roller event just this month, pulls into fourth place (548.86 points) and Mike Watson rounds out the Top Five with 530.20 points.
The remainder of the Bluff POY Top Ten is quite impressive also. EPT Grand Final champion Steve O’Dwyer settles into the sixth place slot following that win and he is joined by Ole Schemion, Griffin Benger, Scott Seiver and Vanessa Selbst to round out the list.
On the CardPlayer Magazine POY, Volpe also has Negreanu nipping at his heels. Volpe’s 3530 in points (which he hasn’t improved on since March) is closely pursued by Negreanu’s 3198. O’Dwyer’s victory in Monte Carlo has moved him into the third place slot with 2848 points, while Dimitar Danchev maintains his position on the CardPlayer list in fourth with 2340 points. Kevin Eyster, the 2013 champion of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, rounds out the Top Five with 2280 points.
Looking at the next five on the CardPlayer POY leaderboard, WPT L. A. Poker Classic champion Paul Klann currently sits in sixth place with 2100 points, tied with Aussie Millions champion Mervin Chan. Joel Micka is in eighth place with his 1996 points, barely edging out Watson (1904) and Dan Shak (1880) in ninth and tenth places, respectively. An interesting point on the CardPlayer leaderboard is that, other than Micka and Shak, all the players have at least one tournament championship on their 2013 tote boards.
The only POY leaderboard where Volpe still maintains a comfortable lead is on the Global Poker Index. Volpe has been able to amass 760.79 points on the GPI countdown, solidly leading Schemion (635.53) and Watson (569.53). Seiver has moved up to take over the fourth place slot with his 551.37 points and Silverman has dropped down but is still in the Top Five with his 532.78 points.
Igor Kurganov, who isn’t listed in the other two POY rankings, is in sixth place on the GPI Top Ten with his 522.96 points, while O’Dwyer pops in at the number seven slot with 498.86 points. Shak (469.97), Christian Harder (461.69) and Micah Raskin (451.75) round out the GPI Top Ten list.
With the start of the WSOP, these leaderboards should see a great deal of movement over the next seven weeks. As players rack up big finishes in large fields, they will earn bigger point totals than what were seen over the first half of the 2013 tournament poker season. Thus, it is likely that when we look at the different POY races following the conclusion of the WSOP in July, a whole new litany of names could be making their first appearances on the Top Ten lists.
