John Phan is player of the year

Full Tilt Poker announced this week that one of its sponsored pros was named Player of the Year by two different sources.

Both CardPlayer and Bluff Magazine listed John "The Razor" Phan as their Player of the Year after he earned two World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title in 2008.

Phan had more than $2 million in tournament winnings in 2008, starting with a fourth-place finish in the $500 Seven-Card Stud Eight-or-Better event at the Gold Strike World Poker Open for $5,675. He was just getting warmed up in Tunica, though.

Phan went on to cash in another event in 10th place for $2,807, and capped off the tournament series with a 22nd-place finish in the WPT $10,000 championship event for $12,060.

In March he added a WPT final table to his accomplishments for the year. At the Bay 101 Shooting Star event, he finished in sixth place for $135,000.

In May, Phan began a run at the WSOP that would lead to five cashes and two wins this year. Along with the prestige of winning, Phan would come out of the WSOP with more than $600,000 in cash.

In July he picked up another WPT final-table finish at the Bellagio Cup IV in Las Vegas. Landing in fifth place, he improved his WPT efforts by one spot and earned $193,915.

Phan must not have been willing to settle for that. He was back at the tables for another WPT championship event in August, taking on the Legends of Poker in Los Angeles. This time he was able to pull out the win to pick up more than $1 million.

The Razor capped off his year with a seventh-place finish in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em event at the Borgata Poker Open in September, and a ninth-place finish in the $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em event of the Festa al Lago Classic.

Despite Phan's success in 2008, the races for Player of the Year were still incredibly tight, as David Pham had another good year as well. He ended up in second in one race this year and third in the other list.

Pham had several high-placing finishes in the WPT, including two televised final tables and a ninth-place finish, as well as a fourth-place finish in a PokerStars.com European Poker Tour event and final tables in several other events.

Had he been able to pull off another Player of the Year win this year in CardPlayer, Pham would have been the first player to win back-to-back honors.

Team Full Tilt players who were also in competition for Player of the Year in 2008 were John Juanda, Erick Lindgren and Erik Seidel.

Juanda and Lingren each picked up a WSOP bracelet in 2008, and Seidel picked up a WPT win plus two WSOP final-table finishes and a second-place finish at the Aussie Millions.

Team Full Tilt is a select group of professional poker players that also includes Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harman, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham and Patrik Antonius.

To join Phan and any of the other sponsored pros at the virtual felt, head to Full Tilt Poker.