We are a week away from the 2025 World Series of Poker. The Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas are prepping for action, wheeling out the massive piles of tournament chips for poker’s greatest tournament and evaluating the dealers’ acumen. The players are also getting ready, as many competitors are looking to move up the ladder in the two Player of the Year races currently under a split decision.
Jesse Lonis Hold Edge in Historic CardPlayer Rankings
He has always been right around the top but has never reached that brass ring. Heading to the 2025 WSOP, Jesse Lonis finds himself atop the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year race. That lead, however, is a tenuous one as a historic duo, and a host of others, are looking to run him down.
Lonis has been active at the Triton Poker Series Montenegro, earning three cashes and two final tables in just the last week. One of those finishes was a victory in the $40,000 Seven Max Mystery Bounty event, which paid him $619,000 and an important 924 points toward the POY. That pushed Lonis’ total for the season to 4559 points, good enough to take the top slot on the countdown.
In a normal year, Lonis’ achievements would be quite noteworthy, but a duo is chasing him that is looking to make poker history. Alex Foxen currently sits in the #2 position on the CardPlayer POY, only 169 points behind Lonis. The history comes in with Kristen Foxen, who currently sits in the ninth-place slot after her fourth-place finish in the $25,000 WPT Global event at the Triton Poker Series Montenegro.
The “better half” of the Foxen household is looking to become the first female player to finish in the Top Ten of the CardPlayer POY since Vanessa Selbst ended 2010 in fourth place. Also important is that Alex and Kristen, if the season finished now, would be the first married couple to finish in the Top Ten since its creation in 2004. You need to go back before these POY lists were created to find the duo of Max and Maria Stern who had a similar position.
Add in players like Jeremy Ausmus (the leader in March), Shannon Shorr, Nick Schulman, and Mikita Badziakouski (among others), and the battle is just starting for who will be crowned the best. Here are the rankings of the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year heading to the 2025 WSOP:
1. Jesse Lonis (Little Falls, NY), 4559 points
2. Alex Foxen (Cold Spring Harbor, NY), 4390
3. Shannon Shorr (Tuscaloosa, AL), 3990
4. Jose ‘Nacho’ Barbero (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 3898
5. Jeremy Ausmus (Las Vegas, NV), 3880
6. Brandon Wilson (Chicago, IL), 3648
7. Nick Schulman (Manhattan, NY), 3266
8. Mikita Badziakouski (Belarus), 3140
9. Kristen Foxen (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada), 3118
10. Joao Simao (Brazil), 2972
Shorr Holds Off Foxen in GPI POY
Alex Foxen is right at the top of the Global Poker Index Player of the Year race, but he does not make it to P1 on the list. Shannon Shorr has been able to compile a better resume of finishes (in the GPI race, only the best thirteen finishes are counted in the race) to slide ahead of Foxen. Joined by Lonis in third, these three men are the only ones over the 3000 mark on the GPI POY.
Several different names are poking their way into the GPI standings that were not accounted for in the CardPlayer board. Eric Blair, who is in thirteenth position on the CardPlayer POY, motors up to the fourth place slot for the GPI. Blair’s run was fueled by a monster performance at the 2025 U.S. Poker Open on the PokerGO Tour, where he racked up six cashes and more than $385K in winnings.
Another major difference is found with the player Ben Tollerene. Two High Roller finishes at the European Poker Tour Monte Carlo and a couple more at the Triton Poker Series Montenegro have put Tollerene into the GPI ratings; you will not find the Canadian in the CardPlayer stats until you get down to #20 on the list. Here are the rankings of the Global Poker Index Player of the Year race as we get ready for the 2025 WSOP:
1. Shannon Shorr (Tuscaloosa, AL), 3292.3 points
2. Alex Foxen (Cold Spring Harbor, NY), 3104,41
3. Jesse Lonis (Little Falls, NY), 3005.19
4. Eric Blair (Las Vegas, NV), 2949.82
5. Nick Schulman (Manhattan, NY), 2886.29
6. Ben Tollerene (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 2816.86
7. David ‘Chino’ Rheem (Los Angeles, CA), 2775.7
8. Brandon Wilson (Chicago, IL), 2766.96
9. Jeremy Ausmus (Las Vegas, NV), 2720.48
10. Jose ‘Nacho’ Barbero (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 2711.0
Side note: On the GPI board, Kristen Foxen is in the fifteenth position, only 139 points behind Barbero for the tenth slot on the ladder.
Now the real fight begins. At the end of May, the 2025 WSOP will kick off with its 100-tournament schedule where history will be made, bracelets will be won, and millions will be earned. There also will be a plethora of poker around Las Vegas that, should a player not want to take on the WSOP, they will have the chance to still make some ducats. The Player of the Year races will definitely be affected by all this action, so by July we could see a massive shift in who will be in contention for the remainder of the calendar year in the Player of the Year races.
(Photo courtesy of PokerGO)