British Poker Awards 2011 – my picks [Editorial]

British Poker Awards 2011 – my picks [Editorial]

Monday, 1 August 2011

It’s that time again when we honour the best and brightest poker talents in our fair isles (or at least those that have been on TV or won major tournaments). Once again I have not been nominated but I think that’s only in the interests of fairness – I’d win every category otherwise and we need to give people like Neil Channing a chance.

The 2011 British Poker Awards will be hosted at this year’s Poker in the Park and I’m willing to take some bets on the winners. Here are my picks:


Best International Player
1. Phil Ivey
2. Tom Dwan
3. Daniel Cates
4. Phil Hellmuth
5. Jason Mercier
6. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
7. Erik Seidel
As tempting as it is to nominate Erik Seidel for his ridiculous start to the year or Jason Mercier for just... well, being Jason Mercier, I think that Hellmuth takes the spot here. His performance at the WSOP was nothing short of incredible as was the way he conducted himself after narrowly missing out on a bracelet not once, not twice but three times. If we were counting Mercier’s horses he’d be a runaway winner but as it is I’m giving this to Phil.


Best Cash Player
1. JP Kelly
2. Richard Ashby
3. Roland de Wolfe
4. Andrew Moseley
5. Sam Trickett
If you didn’t read our interview with young Mr. Trickett about the Macau cash games then do so now. We’ll wait. Done? There you go, then – while Roland de Wolfe plays in high stakes games regularly and Richard Ashby kills big mixed games, Trickett broke through first as a tournament sensation then proved he could play cash with the best of them (literally the best, read about the hand he played with Tom Dwan). This one is his.


Best Mixed Game Player
1. Richard Ashby
2. Matt Perrins
3. James Dempsey
4. Phil Shaw
5. John Kabbaj
As we said, he kills big mixed games. “Chufty” has WSOP cashes in three different disciplines at the series just gone including a third place finish in the No Limit 2-7 Draw event and a fourth place spot in the $10,000 Omaha 8. He kicked off 2011 with a win in the Aussie Millions 8-Game event as well, so... yeah. He plays a lot of games and he’s apparently pretty good at them.


Best PLO Player
1. John Shipley
2. Richard Ashby
3. Devilfish
4. JP Kelly
5. Ben Grundy
Show me another graph like Grundy’s and then I’ll consider awarding this one to another. A simply insane PLO player with a ridiculous winrate.


Best Tournament Player
1. Jake Cody
2. Sam Trickett
3. Roberto Romanello
4. John Earnes
5. Chris Moorman
The online giant has had little live success but began to make his mark on the live tournament scene this year. He began 2011 with a final table at the Aussie Millions Main Event before having a stellar WSOP in which he made two final tables and took home more than $1.1m despite missing out on a bracelet.


Best Social Media User
1. Keith Hawkins
2. Sam Trickett
3. Vicky Coren
4. Liv Boeree
5. Dale Philip
Unless Vicky Coren’s Guardian column counts as social media (it doesn’t, I checked) then I have to give this to everyone’s favourite poker playing Scot. Daleroxxu has a great blog and a hilarious Twitter and Tweets more often than anyone else on this list except Ms. Coren. Props to The Camel for being old but Internet-savvy, though. No offence, Keith.


Best Online Player
1. Chris Moorman
2. Richard Ashby
3. James Dempsey
4. Jake Cody
5. Dave Shallow
Given what I said about Moorman earlier, how could he not win this category? Jake Cody did take down a SCOOP event at PokerStars but come on – it’s Chris Moorman! The man has over $7m in online tournament cashes and just this year has earned more than $300,000 in online tournaments including a SCOOP final table and a third place finish in the Full Tilt $1,000 Monday $2m for almost a quarter-million dollars.


Best Contribution to Poker
1. John Duthie
2. Neil Channing
3. Marty Wilson
4. Tony Kendall
5. Simon Trumper
If I had told you a couple of years ago that we’d be seeing 5,000-player fields in a revolutionary new live-and-online tournament as well as regular four-figure field sizes and five-or-six-figure prizes just from a regular poker club, you wouldn’t believe me. Simon Trumper and Dusk Till Dawn have made this a reality and it just annoys me that I don’t live in Nottingham. Well, OK, not really. Still, Trumper gets this because Dusk Till Dawn trumps (geddit?) any other poker room out there.


Vote at TheBritishPokerAwards.com.



Tags: British Poker Awards, Matt Perry, Editorial