The Nuts – February Poker Player Rankings – ESPN.com ranks the top 10 poker players – Poker Power Rankings
February 28th, 2011 | by Jessica Teakle |
February was a month similar to a setup episode of your favorite TV show. As a fan you know there is so much more ahead, so for now, you’ll be content with the current offerings and just enjoy the show. After an action-packed January, players left the Bahamas, Australia and France in search of something to play. What they found was many smaller events across the world for the first few weeks of the month and finally, a final week filled with majors from coast to coast. Unfortunately, those main events aren’t counted in this month’s rankings as they’ll conclude in March.
Throughout the entire month, the LAPC at the Commerce was the most highly-attended tournament series in general with 54 events on the schedule. From small buy-ins of a couple hundred to the $25,000 High Roller, there was an event available for every type of player. Champions were crowned daily with many players bringing home six-figure scores. Randy Dorfman was one of the biggest beneficiaries of not only the LAPC, but the year in general. He notched two cashes, including a win in the $5,100 event, for a total of $165,270. For 2011, Dorfman has $558,206 in winnings.
Outside of the Commerce, two WSOP Circuit stops were highly attended in Tunica, Miss., and West Palm Beach, Fla. Samuel Barnhart locked up his National Championship seat with a win in Tunica while the Florida main event, at press time, will conclude in a few days. The Heartland Poker Tour stopped in Oklahoma where Michael Jensen defeated the field of 330 players and the European Poker Tour witnessed Michael Tureniec earn his first major title.
And then there was yet another FTOPS. Full Tilt’s introduction of the multi-entry tournaments has created swollen prize pools and none was bigger than the $640 buy-in FTOPS main event which set a record as the largest prize pool in FTP’s history. Blair “blur5f6″ Hinkle is a WSOP bracelet winner, WSOP Circuit champion and although he didn’t win his FTOPS title, (that honor went to GIAMPP), he did take home $1.1 million after the final players brokered a deal. Other notable FTOPS winners include Scott Clements, Chris Klodnicki and Mike Watson.
So how did all these events shake up our rankings? Well, to be honest, not too much. Sorel Mizzi jumped from ninth to sixth in January, but fell off the list this month. Taking his spot is British star Sam Trickett who has amassed $2.9 million in earnings in 2011. He has not only been one of the top players on tour, but also a mentor to others.
The biggest movers of the month were Daniel Negreanu (moving from eighth to fourth) and Erik Seidel (10th to sixth). Negreanu is one of the few “old school” players who hasn’t let up and continues to work on improving his game. He had another good month online thanks to his heads-up challenges and stopped Justin Bonomo to the tune of 17 buy-ins. Seidel continues to have an incredible year following up his $3.3 million January with another appearance at a $25,000 high roller final table.
Here’s a look at February’s Top 10, and of course, feel free to leave your feedback and reactions in the comments section below.
On the bubble:
For the second month in a row Michael Mizrachi was the true bubble, falling just short of Trickett. Grinder might make a return to the list in March with a cash at the LAPC starting off these next 30 days. Eugene Katchalov remained in contention for a spot this month and it would be surprising if for the next few month he’s in this spot instead of the list above. He did lose versus Viktor Blom in a recent SuperStar Showdown, but that couldn’t have been the deciding factor in this month’s ranking. Alexander Kostritsyn, Daniel Alaei, Daniel Cates and Patrik Antonius were also strongly considered. Making their debut on the ballots this month was Sam Stein, Shannon Shorr, Liv Boeree and Viktor Blom.
Final thoughts: Bradley: The biggest omission for me this month is Eugene Katchalov. He’s a rising star in the poker world that is building an impressive set of live results. Trickett has done more damage on three continents the past three months than nearly anybody else. He won big in Macau, won big in Australia and then made a final table in France — all within that three-month span.
Negreanu’s high ranking comes partly because of his reputation but also because he’s recognized poker is being taken over by younger and younger players and he’s worked hard to adapt his game. His results online speak directly to that.
Feldman: As I collected the ballots for this month, there was one similarity besides Ivey being voted into the top spot. Many of the panelists said that until there could be some clarity on the Sorel Mizzi allegations, they don’t know they could put him in the ballot. Mizzi has had incredible results for the past year and a half, but with constant concern of legitimacy, it has limited the credit he’s getting for his millions in earnings. I kept him in my ballot and take from that whatever you’d like. If we’re going by results on the felt that we can validate, it’s hard to not have him on this list.
For the second month in a row, I’m shocked that Katchalov didn’t make the cut. I do feel that Trickett deserves the final spot over him, but maybe at this point Baldwin drops out (barring some sort of significant score on his part) and we get those two in there.
Next month I expect a lot of moments with so many events factoring into the equation. As for this month, I don’t mind the fact the majority of this list is similar to January as there really wasn’t a ton going on. This was one of the few months where just a couple of events could really affect these rankings and in those events, nothing truly drastic emerged.
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Tags: February, February Poker