Secure
Secure
Trusted
Trusted
VERIFIED BADGE
Verified
Flag Background

Steven Song Dominates GPI POY 2022 Standings

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

The Global Poker Index planned to announce the 2022 Player of the Year final standings on January 4, 2023. It did. And they had needed those few days to tally all of the final results from 2022 live tournament poker, which played out through December 30. And the points there were of vital importance to the final POY standings.

In the end, Steven Song won two POY titles, and Cherish Andrews won the other. Both players worked quite hard in December to soar to the top and become Players of the Year.

Total 2022 POY

The 2022 GPI Player of the Year race was never a sure thing, but with a month or so in the year, it appeared that Adam Hendrix had it locked. The points he accumulated throughout his best year of live poker to date put him atop the leaderboard.

Hendrix won more than $1.5M in 2022, more than $500K more than his 2021 total. His points came from a long list of tournament wins and final tables. His wins included a US Poker Open event for $211,200, a Wynn Summer Classic event for $257,885, and a Poker Masters event for $192,400. And he final tabled everything from events on the PokerGO Tour, World Poker Tour, and World Series of Poker. And he played up until the very end of the year, accumulating three cashes at the WPT World Championship and one cash at the MSPT Venetian in the last days of 2022.

But that wasn’t enough to beat his friend, Steven Song.

Song had the best year of his career by far, earning $2,282,059 in total. His year started with final tables on the WSOP Circuit, Venetian DeepStack Showdown Poker Series, and WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. He kept up the momentum through the WSOP in Las Vegas, finished second in one event and seventh in another, making more final tables at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Tampa and PGT Stairway to Millions. And he did win a Wynn Fall Classic event in October.

But it was at the WPT World Championship that he took over the POY race. He won the massive WPT Prime Championship event at Wynn Las Vegas in December, earning more than $712K and 422 points in the GPI rankings.

The top five on the final GPI POY leaderboard were:

-1. Stephen Song (USA) 3,544 points

-2. Adam Hendrix (USA) 3,526 points

-3. Jeremy Ausmus (USA) 3,497 points

-4. Chad Eveslage (USA) 3,475 points

-5. Farid Jattin (Colombia) 3,467 points

Mid-Major 2022 POY

This category is only a few years old but has the purpose of giving more players a chance to win a category. Mid-Major is a category focusing on points for tournaments with buy-ins of $2500 or less.

It just so happened that Steven Song played such a variety of buy-in events throughout 2022 that he climbed both leaderboards. Angela Jordison almost had it locked up at one point, doing well at WSOP Circuit events in November and running deep in a WPT World Championship event in December at Wynn Las Vegas. But Song winning the WPT Prime Main Event took the top position from Jordison.

In fact, Jordison did come close to beating Song, as she final tabled the Mid-States Poker Tour stop at Venetian at the very end of December for 204 more points. But it wasn’t enough. Song slid ahead by just 40 points in the end.

Song became the first player to ever win two GPI Player of the Year titles in one year.

The top five in this category were:

-1. Stephen Song (USA) 2,580 points

-2. Angela Jordison (USA) 2,540 points

-3. Julien Sitbon (France) 2,415 points

-4. Jared Ingles (USA) 2,399 points

-5. Donovan Dean (USA) 2,317 points

Female 2022 POY

To focus on the women who excel on the live tournament circuit, the GPI Player of the Year designates a leaderboard for players who identify as female.

That race, too, was up in the air until the end. Actually, Angela Jordison was ahead for some time, but she lost the top spot on the leaderboard to Cherish Andrews in December, courtesy of the WPT World Championship. Jordison tried to make up for lost ground at the MSPT Venetian in the last days of December and did finish fifth at the final table, but that wasn’t enough.

Andrews had her best career year to date as well in 2022, with winnings totaling more than $758K. A significant portion of that number came solely from the WPT events at Wynn Las Vegas in December. Andrews won one event, placed second in a High Roller, and then finished sixth at another NLHE event. She can add her WPT trophy and GPI trophy to the one she received for winning a WSOP 2022 Online Championship event in October.

Andrews became the WPT Player of the Festival and then faded Jordison’s deep MSPT run to hold the title for 2022.

-1. Cherish Andrews (USA) 2,835 points

-2. Angela Jordison (USA) 2,612 points

-3. Kristen Bicknell (Canada) 2,230 points

-4. Jessica Vierling (Germany) 2,102 points

-5. Christina Gollins (USA) 2,057 points

 

 

search

Featured Blogs