Other awards of note:

Liv Boeree was the winner in the other headline category, the Favorite Female Player.

Boeree won in a landslide with 37.7% of the votes despite social media heavy lobbying on Twitter from some of her category rivals Maria Ho, Vanessa Rousso, Vanessa Selbst and Amanda Musumeci .

Ben Lamb took the most lopsided victory in a category with his win for Breakout Player of the Year.

With a third place in the WSOP main event, a $10k PLO bracelet, the WSOP Player of the Year award and well over $5 million in cashes, it’s not hard to see why.

Lamb topped Matt Waxman, Sam Trickett, Chris Moorman, Galen Hall and Elio Fox to win the category.

Magician and Scott Best in Show

Antonio Esfandiari and Kara Scott also scooped the male and female awards for Favorite TV Personality thanks to their highly praised work on the WSOP Main Event live stream.

The top “On the Felt” moment from 2011 in readers’ eyes was Phil Hellmuth making three runner-up finishes at the 2011 WSOP.

For the breakdown of the voting totals for the Readers Choice Awards, check out the March issue of BLUFF magazine.

The rest of the awards:

Favorite Male TV Personality: Antonio Esfandiari (WSOP Live Coverage)

Favorite Female TV Personality: Kara Scott (WSOP Live Coverage)

Favorite Web-based Poker Show: The Micros

Favorite Poker Blog: WickedChopsPoker.com

Favorite Poker Tweeter: Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker)

Favorite Las Vegas Poker Room: Aria

Favorite California Poker Room: The Commerce

Favorite Florida Poker Room: Hard Rock Seminole

Favorite East Coast Poker Room: Borgata

Breakout Performer of the Year: Ben Lamb

Favorite Male Player: Daniel Negreanu

Favorite Female Player: Liv Boeree

Today in the 3-Bet Jason Mercier opens 2012 atop the Global Poker Index, Tristan Wade catches us up on his post-WSOPE bracelet travels and we re-visit the biggest pot of Finnish pro Juha Helppi's life.

1) Mercier Starts 2012 as King of the Tournament Pile

With no new tournaments since the last ratings were released, it’s not much of a surprise Jason Mercier held on to his spot at the top of the Global Poker Index rankings to start 2012.

Somewhat surprising, however, is that because of a few older tournaments shifting into a different ranking frame, several players actually made moves up or down the index.

Most notably the highest grossing female player of last year, Vanessa Selbst, jumped back into the top 10 at number six and Phil Hellmuth dropped 49 spots to knock him back to #79.

Mercier: Still mashing.

 

Complete top ten listed below; see the full ranking and summary of the scoring changes coming in 2012 at GlobalPokerIndex.com.

Top 10 Global Poker Index as of Jan 2, 2012:

1. Jason Mercier 3,015.08

2. Erik Seidel 2,851.80

3. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier 2,805.75

4. Eugene Katchalov 2,656.33

5. Sam Trickett 2,582.47

6. Vanessa Selbst 2,441.15

7. Will "The Thrill" Failla 2,432.32

8. Shawn Buchanan 2,430.85

9. Matt Waxman 2,395.23

10. Sorel Mizzi 2,374.73

2) Tristan Wade Back and Blogging

Rising star Tristan “Cr8ive” Wade finally broke through with his first WSOP bracelet at the WSOPE last October and then, well, pretty much dropped off the radar.

Wade: Bracelet earned.

 

A personal health issue, a trip to Brazil and the holidays all had a lot to do with it, but he’s now back and about to resume his crushing of the tournament circuit at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

His latest blog is up here if you’d like to catch up on his travels.

Also of note:

Revisiting the final table of the WSOPE event Wade won, it certainly has to rank as one of the toughest of last year:

1st Tristan Wade (Me, Cre8ive) 2nd Michael Watson (SirWatts) 3rd Richard Toth (RichardToth) 4th Max Silver (Not sure his online name) 5th Bertrand Grospellier (Elky) 6th Steve O'Dwyer (MrTimCaum) 7th Emil Patel (Whitelime) 8th Taylor Paur (ambiguosity, tramp$d0pray) 9th James Dempsey (Flushy, MKKMOO) 10th John Armbrust (texduke)

3) Sahamies Stuns Juha Helppi with $150k Bad Beat

In honor of the $100k High Roller at the PCA, we revisit this clip from Sweden’s version of High Stakes Poker (The Game) taped during the Scandinavian Poker Masters last year.

Finnish pro and high roller veteran Juha Helppi and everyone's favorite loose cannon Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies mixed it up in what Helppi called “the biggest pot of his life.”

Ziigmund thinks he has the odds to call with his up-and-down straight draw but ends up being way behind Helppi’s pocket tens … until he hits his five on the turn.

The $150k pot is likely peanuts to Sahamies, 2011's second-biggest winner online, but the clip is a good one just the same both for the pot (starts at 7 mins) and for Fredrik Halling’s scoop neck cableknit sweater.

High Rollers everywhere, we salute you.

Today we hit up a too little, too late move from the Norwegian government, a surprising nod to Phil Hellmuth and some handsome photos of Lacey Jones in lingerie.

1) Norway Slaps Huge, Empty Tax Bill on AP

In what appears to be a textbook case of too little, too late, the Norwegian government has slapped a 180 million kronor ($30 million USD) tax bill on Madeira Fjord, a Norwegian shell company Absolute Poker used as a holding company.

The bill is based on estimated revenue of 430 million kronor ($72 million USD) from US players that Absolute supposedly shuttled through Madeira via its Blanca Games parent company.

Norwegian tax authorities say the company intentionally laundered money and hid the true nature of the money to avoid paying taxes.

Madeira Fjord already filed for bankruptcy back in April and while Blanca Games tries to sell off its assets to pay players a rumored 20 cents on the dollar, the Norwegian government will just have to stand in line with everybody else to get its cut.

Story in Norwegian here.

2) Hellmuth Named Wicked Chops Player of the Year

There's no true formula for the "Player of the Year" in poker.

Various media outlets have their own ranking systems, some live, some online, and while the winners are usually very worthy of an award, it's not exactly a consensus on who had the best year.

Wicked Chops POY.

 

Wicked Chops Poker doesn't even bother with a true formula per se - they just wing it based on a combination of results, impact on the game, sponsorship appeal and "more."

Their choice for 2011 Player of the Year?

Surprisingly, Phil Hellmuth, given that he didn't win the most money or have the most cashes. Or even win a tournament at all.

What he did do:

“Simply put, Hellmuth had the best mix of tournament results and “relevance” of any one player this year.”

“… After Black Friday, Hellmuth earned over $1.6M on the circuit. He finished second in the WSOP POY race.

“Most importantly, for his reputation at least, he finished second in three non-hold’em events, including the prized WSOP $50,000 Players’ Championship.

“A player can’t fluke his way into those types of finishes. On the biggest stage, when it matters the most, Hellmuth performed the best, even if he didn’t close out the events.

“Equally important, two things happened during that WSOP run: 1) Hellmuth generated the type of buzz and excitement that you rarely see on the tournament circuit, and 2) poker fans actually started to root for him."

See the rest of their justification here.

3) Lacey Jones Pics of the Week

If you haven’t been paying attention to the tweets of well traveled model and poker hostess Lacey Jones, you might have missed the fact she’s been in Asia doing some modeling gigs.

Photo: Lacey Jones.

 

You might also then have missed the "Pics of the Week" she's been posting on her blog from said modeling gigs.

As you might expect, they’re quite viewable as you can see from the example on the right.

She's also been posting her thoughts in her blog and wrapped up 2011 with a Christmas Day post that included a reflection on her leap into full-time poker several years ago:

“Looking back now that decision was meant to be. I’ve met my soul mate, made some amazing friends, traveled and hosted TV shows all around the world and lived my life according to my terms.

“Regardless what happened earlier this year with the US ban on online poker, it has been a great ride…that I’m not finished with. “

She's modeling full-time for the near future, but it sounds like we can expect to see Jones back in front of the mic or on the felt at a poker event again soon.

Click through here to see her latest blog and here to see the latest pic of the week.

Starting the day, 149 players came back to the felt from the original 413 players and, in contrast to Wednesday’s play, they all knew what was at stake. The $10,000 buy in event built a prize pool of over $4 million and, per the Bellagio’s standards, 100 players would take home at least $11,942 for their efforts. The big prize, of course, would be for winning the tenth annual running of this tournament (the original event during the first season of the WPT), valued at $821,612, a seat at the WPT Championships next year and the player’s name etched for eternity into the Champions’ Cup.

With 49 players not receiving anything for their two days of labor, the short stacks attempted to get back in the game or go home early. Several notable names dropped from the action within the first hour, including Jason Mercier, Todd Terry, Steve Zolotow, Phil Hellmuth and Dan Heimiller were all casualties of the first hour of action. With that said, there were several pros that pushed their way up the leaderboard in the early action.

Vanessa Selbst, who has been lurking around the top of the action since the start of the tournament, missed a chance to eliminate the defending champion of this event, Antonio Esfandiari, during this early play. After a limp from an opponent, Selbst would push out a raise to 6000, which drew Esfandiari’s three bet of 23K. After the original limper popped his remaining chips (around 30K) into the pot, Selbst went into the tank before announcing a 58K bet. This was enough to get Esfandiari out of the way and the cards were turned up.

Selbst, with her pocket Aces, had the cooler to her unnamed opponent’s pocket Kings and, once the board came six high, pushed Selbst up to 340K. She did miss out on getting some of Esfandiari’s roughly 200K in chips, however, because of the all in by their opponent and her protection raise of her Aces. Esfandiari, for his part, would only state he had A-K or pocket Queens and continued play.

Esfandiari would use this escape to drive himself up the leaderboard as play continued to the bubble. Once again his nemesis would be Selbst and this time they were joined by Darren Elias in a three way hand. After Elias moved all in, Selbst made the call, only to see Esfandiari move his stack into the center. Selbst made the call and the threesome tabled their cards: A-K for Selbst, pocket nines for Esfandiari and pocket threes for Elias. The 7-4-2-Q-10 board missed both Selbst and Elias and pushed Esfandiari near the top of the leaderboard.

Once John Krpan eliminated Brent Sheirbon on the bubble, the remaining 100 players could celebrate their success. Those that scraped their way in also began to drop by the wayside. Players such as Tyler Patterson, Will Failla, David Baker, Ted Lawson, Scott Montgomery and Carlos Mortensen all took home the minimum cash ($11,942). Freddy Deeb, Day Two chip leader Grant Lang, Joshua Pollock, Eric Baldwin and Eric Buchman all took down a $12,937 payday while the field continued to whittle down.

Esfandiari finally found a challenger atop the leaderboard when Kyle Julius, Jason DeWitt and Alexander Debus locked up in a battle. After Debus three bet DeWitt, Julius decided to put out the four bet and, after a fold from DeWitt, Debus moved all in. Julius made the call, tabling pocket Queens against Debus’ Big Slick, and the race was on. The 5-3-2 flop opened some more outs for Debus, but blanks on the turn and river crowned Julius the winner, eliminating Debus and moving Julius to the top of the leaderboard.

When the cards hit the air at noon (Las Vegas time) with 49 players remaining, the leaderboard lines up as such:

1. Kyle Julius, 1.457 million
2. Soi Nguyen, 1.38 million
3. Antonio Esfandiari, 805,000
4. Larry Wells, 704,000
5. Scott Clements, 563,500
6. Madison Bergeron, 554,000
7. Andrew Lichtenberger, 530,500
8. Matt Glantz, 505,000
9. Jeffrey Frerichs, 439,500
10. Jason DeWitt, 415,000

Esfandiari is looking to make history, as no player has ever defended their championship on the WPT. Also looking to add to their legacies by winning another WPT championship are Scott Clements, David Williams, Dwyte Pilgrim, Jonathan Little and Matt Giannetti. Selbst is currently sitting in eleventh place and, along with Dee Dozier, carry the banner for a potential first time female WPT champion.

Play on Friday will be for five levels, while Saturday’s action will look to determine the six handed television table (which could be a long day!). The final table will play out on Sunday, when the final major worldwide tournament of 2011 will crown a champion.

A total of 283 players started Day 2 but after 10 levels of play only 149 remained. With late registration available the field finally topped out at 413 players after the ninth level.

James Dempsey, Allen Cunningham, Vanessa Selbst, Jason Dewitt, Justin Smith, Dwyte Pilgrim, Will Failla, Annette Obrestad, Erik Seidel, Carlos Mortensen, Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson are among the players who bagged up chips at the end of play.

Defending champion Antonio Esfandiari is still in the hunt with nearly 300,000 chips to his name.

Meanwhile Jeff Madsen, Mark Newhouse, Bob Bounahra, Lisa Hamilton, Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu all hit the rail on Day 2.

Apparently the run-good has finally run out for 2011 WSOP POY Ben Lamb as he busted in the later stages of Day 2. He had the misfortune of smashing pocket kings into Blake Kelso’s pocket aces.

As usual Phil Hellmuth arrived late but quickly doubled his stack. He even won a significant hand off WSOP nemesis Ben Lamb before finally falling down to an average stack of 50,000 chips.

Perhaps the most memorable hand of the day occurred mid-way through Level 8 when Scott Clements got all-in with T-9 for trip nines against Chris Klodnicki who had 8-8 for a full house.

Amazingly Klodnicki hit quad eights on the turn and then Clements hit the case nine on the river for better quads.

Day 3 begins at 12 p.m. tomorrow and the prizepool is set to finally be announced. Expect first place to come at just under the $870,124 that Antonio Esfandiari won last year. Follow along with the WPT live update team.

Here are the top approximate 10 chip counts at the end of play: 

1. Grant Lang – 382,000 2. Scott Clements – 330,100 3. Soi Nguyen – 329,800 4. Keith Ferrara – 297,000 5. James Dempsey – 290,000 6. Antonio Esfandiari – 275,000 7. Brent Roberts – 270,000 8. Allen Cunningham – 235,000 9. Ty Reiman – 225,000 10. Ravi Raghavan – 220,000

A total of 283 players started Day 2 but after 10 levels of play only 149 remained. With late registration available the field finally topped out at 413 players after the ninth level.

James Dempsey, Allen Cunningham, Vanessa Selbst, Jason Dewitt, Justin Smith, Dwyte Pilgrim, Will Failla, Annette Obrestad, Erik Seidel, Carlos Mortensen, Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson are among the players who bagged up chips at the end of play.

Defending champion Antonio Esfandiari is still in the hunt with nearly 300,000 chips to his name.

Meanwhile Jeff Madsen, Mark Newhouse, Bob Bounahra, Lisa Hamilton, Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu all hit the rail on Day 2.

Apparently the run-good has finally run out for 2011 WSOP POY Ben Lamb as he busted in the later stages of Day 2. He had the misfortune of smashing pocket kings into Blake Kelso’s pocket aces.

As usual Phil Hellmuth arrived late but quickly doubled his stack. He even won a significant hand off WSOP nemesis Ben Lamb before finally falling down to an average stack of 50,000 chips.

Perhaps the most memorable hand of the day occurred mid-way through Level 8 when Scott Clements got all-in with T-9 for trip nines against Chris Klodnicki who had 8-8 for a full house.

Amazingly Klodnicki hit quad eights on the turn and then Clements hit the case nine on the river for better quads.

Day 3 begins at 12 p.m. tomorrow and the prizepool is set to finally be announced. Expect first place to come at just under the $870,124 that Antonio Esfandiari won last year. Follow along with the WPT live update team.

Here are the top approximate 10 chip counts at the end of play: 

1. Grant Lang – 382,000 2. Scott Clements – 330,100 3. Soi Nguyen – 329,800 4. Keith Ferrara – 297,000 5. James Dempsey – 290,000 6. Antonio Esfandiari – 275,000 7. Brent Roberts – 270,000 8. Allen Cunningham – 235,000 9. Ty Reiman – 225,000 10. Ravi Raghavan – 220,000

Bluff Magazine’s ratings only look at the top ten finishes for each player in a calendar year and awards points accordingly. With that said, there are a few surprises on the leaderboard when compared with the other ranking systems.

Heading into December, Eugene Katchalov is the leader of the Bluff pack, the only player who has earned over 1000 points (1077.38). Within striking distance of Katchalov is Ben Lamb, whose outstanding play at the World Series of Poker this year has him set in the second slot with 988.10 points. Rounding out the Top Five are Matthew Waxman (968.20), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (966.48) and Sam Trickett (938.32).

Heading over to the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year race, there is a nearly entirely different Top Five. The only similarity with Bluff Magazine is Lamb, who is the leader of the CardPlayer POY with 6,036 points. Running right behind the 2011 WSOP Player of the Year is the United Kingdom’s Chris Moorman, whose 5,875 points puts him within range of knocking off Lamb. Russia’s Oleksii Kovalchuk (5,380 points) is in the third slot, with Marvin Rettenmaier (4,554) and Sam Stein (4,505) rounding out the Top Five.

There are two interesting side notes to the Bluff/CardPlayer POY rankings comparison. The current World Champion, Pius Heinz, is ranked twelfth in the CardPlayer ratings and eighth in the Bluff rankings despite “only” winning the WSOP Championship Event this year. On another odd comparison front, Phil Hellmuth is ranked in eighteenth place by Bluff after his outstanding play at the WSOP this summer; on the CardPlayer rankings, Hellmuth isn’t even in the Top 25.

The Global Poker Index rankings are a bit skewed by the factor that it looks at the past three years of finishes instead of the current calendar year. For that reason, there is sometimes little movement in the rankings. On the GPI, Erik Seidel is the leader of the pack with 2560.94 points, followed by Grospellier (2493.71) and Jason Mercier (2398.58). Katchalov is in fourth place on the GPI (2371.55) and Shawn Buchanan (2331.45) rounds out the Top Five.

Whichever ranking system you’re looking at, the month of December will determine their respective Player of the Year winners. The World Poker Tour is the busiest tournament circuit between now and the end of the year, with four events taking place. At this moment, the WPT Marrakech is in play, with the WPT Prague set to play from December 1-5. The “traditional” end of the calendar year tournament for the WPT, the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, will take place from December 6-11 and will be followed this year by the WPT Venice, which plays out from December 13-18.

The other two major players in the tournament poker world, the World Series of Poker Circuit and the European Poker Tour, also have tournaments in action early in December. The WSOPC will be in action at Harrah’s in Atlantic City from December 1-12, while the EPT takes to the felt in Prague, the Czech Republic, from December 1-5.

With these major events – as well as a plethora of smaller tournaments around the world, such as the latest tournament of the Epic Poker League‘s inaugural season, the 2011 Unibet Open in Riga, the Gold Strike Winter Poker Classic in Mississippi and Larry Flynt’s Holiday Poker Classic at the Hustler Casino in Gardena, California – the eventual Player of the Year winners for every outlet will be determined. What is up for argument, however, is which one of the victors is REALLY the Player of the Year!

November Niners Martin Staszko, Eoghan O’Dea, Matt Giannetti, Phil Collins, Ben Lamb, Badih Bou-Nahra, Pius Heinz, Anton Makiievskyi and Sam Holden are all likely on their way to Las Vegas or already there.

The last time all nine players were at the same table was back on July 18 when John Hewitt was finally ousted in 10th place by O’Dea after a four hour final table bubble.

The past three months have seen almost every player in the November Nine active on the live tournament scene, especially at the World Series of Poker Europe. 

November Niners have historically done very well at the WSOPE as Ivan Demidov (2008), Antoine Saout (2009) and James Akenhead (2009) have all made the European Main Event final table.

This year’s group wasn’t quite as prominent but there have been several success stories.

Texan Matt Gianetti was perhaps the most impressive as he outlasted 240 players to win WPT Malta for $276k. We recently did a Gianetti interview to get caught up on his last few months.

Eoghan O’Dea made the final table of the €5k Pot-Limit Omaha event at the WSOPE. He finished ninth for €21,221.

Ukrainian Anton Makiievskyi finished 19th in a relatively small €3,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Shootout side event at EPT Barcelona for €6,913.

Meanwhile Ben Lamb and online poker stud Phil “USCphildo” Collins, arguably the two most well-known players at the final table, haven’t cashed since this summer but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying as both were very active at the WSOPE.

Lamb actually wrapped up the 2011 WSOP Player of the Year race, despite not cashing. Phil Hellmuth added another second place finish at the WSOPE but it wasn’t enough to close the gap between himself and Lamb.

Now the 2011 November Nine will set their sights on the big show with an $8.7 million first place prize still up for grabs.

There are numerous compelling storylines at the final table but perhaps none are bigger than Ben Lamb who can top off an incredible summer by taking down poker’s ultimate prize.

Phil Collins, Eoghan O’Dea and Matt Gianetti are also proven sharks so no one will be underestimating them.

The final table is also the most international ever and Martin Staszko (Czech Republic) Anton Makiievskyi (Ukraine), Badih Bou-Nahra (Belize) and Pius Heinz (Germany) are all looking to become the first World Champion from their respective countries.

Finally Sam Holden will look to keep the English invasion going and fight back from the short stack to win it all. It doesn't help that it's one of the toughest final tables ever according to a recent interview we did with Holden.

The action begins on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and the plan is to play all the way down to the final three players. There will then be a one-day recess with a winner to be crowned on Tuesday. 

For the first time ever ESPN2 will televise every hand of the final table. Player’s hole cards will be shown on a 15-minute delay. On Tuesday the action will switch to ESPN, where, once again, action will be shown live, with a 15-minute delay.

PokerListings will also be on hand for the prestigious event and we’ll be firing out news, live updates and photos as fast as you can refresh the page.

Here’s a look at the chip counts heading into the final table. Click on a player to check their profile on PokerListings.com.

1. Martin Staszko – 40,175,000 2. Eoghan O’Dea – 33,925,000 3. Matt Gianetti – 24,750,000 4. Phil Collins – 23,875,000 5. Ben Lamb – 20,875,000 6. Badih Bou-Nahra – 19,700,000 7. Pius Heinz – 16,425,000 8. Anton Makiievskyi – 13,825,000 9. Sam Holden – 12,375,000

Last year, the annual America v Europe Caesars cup tournament saw Europe take home the gold. This time around, an American team captained by Phil Hellmuth and made up of Jason Mercier, November Niner Ben Lamb, Daniel ‘Kid Poker’ Negreanu and Johnny Chan were enough to see off a British team made up of Max Lykov, Triple Crown winner Jake Cody, PartyPoker pro Tony G, Dane Gus Hansen and captained by Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier.

Nothing Between The Two Teams

The event was a one-day affair and saw Jason Mercier and Ben Lamb face off against Jake Cody and Tony G to kick it off. With America having two of the hottest running young tournament players of recent months, it was no surprise that they took an early lead against the Europeans.

However, that lead didn’t last long. The next match saw Hellmuth pair up with his old friend Negreanu to take on the European duo of Lykov and Hansen. The aggression from the two Europeans was too much for Hellmuth and Negreanu, and the Europeans tied things up at one match apiece.

Shock Horror:  Hellmuth Gets Lucky!

The third match of the event saw poker legend Johnny Chan take out the European captain and all round top tournament player ‘ElkY’, which meant America only needed one more win to take the cup home. With all five players having played an event, it was down to the captains to choose. The Europeans put forward Lykov, whilst Hellmuth chose himself, wanting to avenge his loss to the Russian earlier in the day.

The aggression from the Europeans was the key earlier and clearly Hellmuth thought he had Lykov’s number, limping from the button and snap-calling Lykov’s shove all-in, crying “I was trapping!” as he tabled his QT. However, Lykov had him tied up in meta-game knots as his K9 had the lead. Hellmuth and his team were delighted to see the Q fall on the flop and hold up to take the win and the cup back across the pond for his team.