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Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008
'The Master' surges to PokerListings POY lead
By Earl Burton
Demonstrating one of the best two-month runs of tournament poker in recent memory, poker professional Men "The Master" Nguyen has taken over the top spot on the PokerListings.com Player of the Year race. PokerListings has also tweaked its POY rating system to reduce the frequency of tied players.
To break potential ties, PokerListings will now take into account the number of final-table appearances (FTA). If the tied players have the same number of final tables, then the money won (2008 earnings) will come into play to break that tie.
Nguyen, the veteran pro from Bell Gardens, Calif., has already amassed major points for paying cashes in 2008, with six final tables and an astounding four victories.
Nguyen has been playing almost every event so far in 2008 and this is what has driven him to the top of the POY mountain. While most professional players only focus on the larger buy-in tournaments, Nguyen has been playing buy-ins as low as $300.
Among those final-table finishes and outright victories, the Master has had a stunning string of successes at the L.A. Poker Classic now under way, where he has taken down three "Bucking Bronco" trophies.
Two of his bigger scores, however, have come in larger-buy-in tournaments: the World Poker Tour's World Poker Open in Tunica in January, where he finished third, and one of the $1,500 No-Limit events at the L.A. Poker Classic, which he won. It's not unimaginable that the Master could prevail in the POY rankings on the strength of the number of tournaments he plays.
Former PokerListings POY leader Mike McDonald has had a dormant couple of weeks but maintains second place on the list. McDonald's age (18) will be a factor, as his efforts to add to his point totals will be restricted to foreign tournaments such as the highly challenging European Poker Tour.
Mike Pickett, the champion at the World Series of Poker Circuit stop at Harrah's Rincon, joins a host of players at 1,600 points but, because of the tiebreaker scenarios, only lands in ninth place on the POY list.
Joining Pickett as a newcomer in the Top 10 is the man who was the runner-up in the Rincon tournament, California's David Peters, who added a WSOPC ring victory to his second-place finish to break into the Top 10 with 1,370 points.
As of today, the Top 10 looks like this:
| Place | Name | Country | Points | FTA | 2008 Winnings |
| 1st | Men Nguyen | United States | 2,386 | 6 | $510,666 |
| 2nd | Mike McDonald | Canada | 2,140 | 3 | $1,487,214 |
| 3rd | Bertrand Grospellier | France | 1,600 | 1 | $2,000,000 |
| 4th | Alexander Kostritsyn | Russia | 1,600 | 1 | $1,452,000 |
| 5th | Gavin Griffin | United States | 1,600 | 1 | $1,401,109 |
| 6th | Howard Lederer | United States | 1,600 | 1 | $1,100,000 |
| 7th | Brett Faustman | United States | 1,600 | 1 | $892,413 |
| 8th | Bart Tichelman | United States | 1,600 | 1 | $415,595 |
| 9th | Mike Picket | United States | 1,600 | 1 | $229,002 |
| 10th | David Peters | United States | 1,370 | 2 | $157,995 |
Completed qualifying events: WSOPC Rincon, Campeonato de España-Peralada, 2008 South African Poker Open Championship Event, 2008 European Deep Stack Poker Championship Main Event, 2008 Paris Open of Poker Championship Event, 2008 Nordic Lights Championship Event, Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Leg 2-Walsall Championship Event
Qualifying events in progress: 2008 L.A. Poker Classic (through Event 24), 2008 Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza (through Event 11, with Events 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 qualifying)
Bubbling under the Top 10 are several names that poker fans will recognize. Poker pro Lee Watkinson is only 50 points from cracking into the Top 10 and David "The Dragon" Pham, who has also been playing well at the L.A. Poker Classic, jumps into the second tier in 16th place.
Diane Nguyen maintains Ladies POY lead
With two solid finishes in preliminary action at the L.A. Poker Classic, Diane Nguyen has been able to maintain her lead in the PokerListings Ladies Player of the Year race.
The Canadian Nguyen has earned an eighth-place and a second-place finish in two of the LAPC preliminary events, to hold a 63-point lead over Vanessa Selbst, the World Poker Tour Ladies champion at the LAPC.
Nguyen's efforts, however, have come in two open events while Selbst has only been able to add 27 points to her WPTL victory. Jennifer Golin, whose early-season success had her in the Ladies POY lead for a bit, has now dropped to third place.
Two players have earned their way into the Ladies Top 10 with excellent finishes in a couple of far-flung locales. Spain's Marga Gonzales Dominguez was the champion of the first stop of the Campeonato de España in Peralada, Spain, and the victory earned her enough points to make her tied with several players for fourth place.
Joining her as a new entry into the Top 10 is Melanie Banfield, whose fourth-place finish at the 2008 South African Poker Open earned her enough points to bump Erica Schoenberg out of the 10th-place spot. The Ladies Top 10 looks like this:
| Place | Name | Points |
| 1st | Diane Nguyen | 410 |
| 2nd | Vanessa Selbst | 347 |
| 3rd | Jennifer Golin | 326 |
| 4th | Regette Bechara | 320 |
| Maria Gonzales Dominguez | ||
| GiGi Dong | ||
| Christy King | ||
| Irina Liepina | ||
| Louise Rocchio | ||
| 10th | Melanie Banfield | 270 |
Over the next couple of weeks, the tournament schedule kicks into high gear. Along with the continuing preliminary play at the LAPC, including its WPT Championship Event and the WPT Invitational, and the Venetian Deep Stack tournaments, the EPT returns to action in Copenhagen and the WSOPC also has its next stop on the schedule in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Both the main and the Ladies POY tallies will definitely be subject to change, so check back at the beginning of March to see how the PokerListings Player of the Year races are stacking up.
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