While the Player of the Year races for live poker tournaments was one of the closest in history (at both Card Player and BLUFF Magazine) the title of Online Poker Player of the Year at Card Player Magazine was an absolute runaway victory for Jason “jdpc27” Wheeler.

Wheeler tallied an impressive 8,076 OPOY Points on his way to the award, besting his nearest competitor Mike “CuteIsWhatIAim4” Telker by well over a thousand points; Telker finished the year with 6,822 OPOY Points. From there the difference between Wheeler and the rest of the online poker players on the leader-board grew even more pronounced as no other player managed to crack 6,000 OPOY Points.

One very big name that managed to crack the Top 10 was Lock Poker Pro Chris “Moorman1” Moorman. Moorman, considered by many to be the greatest online poker tournament player in the history of the game finished in 7th place on the leader-board after collecting over $650k in prize-money at the online poker tables in 2011. Moorman was also a Player of the Year contender, finishing in 2nd place just behind Ben Lamb for that honor! In 2011 Moorman also achieved a career milestone, surpassing the $7.5 million mark in career online tournament winnings.

The Card Player Magazine Online Player of the Year began in 2006 when Joseph “hoodini10” Udine won the award (amazingly names like Roland de Wolfe and Howard Lederer were among the contenders back in the heyday of online poker). In 2007 the award went to Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron; in 2008 it was Alex “AJKHoosier1” Kamberis who picked up the award; 2009 saw a tight race to the end as Steve “gboro780” Gross edged out David “Doc Sands” Sands for the trophy; and in 2010 it Taylor “Ambiguosity” Paur who would edge out Gross, with Paur tallying the highest point total in the history of the award. And all along the one constant in the races was Chris Moorman in the Top 10; amazingly he has never won the award.

Here is a look at the Top 10 players on the 2011 Card Player Magazine Online Player of the Year leader-board (which has now been renamed after the new sponsor of the leader-board to the Lock Online Player of the Years Award):

1. Jason ‘jdpc27’ Wheeler — 8,076 points, $768,877 in 2011 winnings

2. Mike ‘CuteIsWhatIAim4’ Telker — 6,822 points, $1,075,643 in 2011 winnings

3. Schappuscha — 5,900 points, $595,641 in 2011 winnings

4. Flush_Entity — 5,742 points, $569,734 in 2011 winnings

5. Michael ‘Pipedream17’ Dietrich — 5,696 points, $487,606 in 2011 winnings

6. Russell ‘rdcrsn’ Carson — 5,566 points, $613,718 in 2011 winnings

7. Chris ‘Moorman1’ Moorman — 5,438 points, $655,004 in 2011 winnings

8. Aleh ‘cooltwister’ Plauski — 5,050 points, $470,199 in 2011 winnings

9. Benjamin ‘delaney_kid’ Delaney — 4,670 points, $387,465 in 2011 winnings

10. Jeff ‘YoungSupremacy’ Hakim — 4,632 points, $361,019 in 2011 winnings

Tags: Bluff Magazine, Card Player Magazine, Career Milestone, Chris Moorman, Hoodini10, Howard Lederer, Leader Board, Online Poker Tournament, Opoy, Paur, Point Total, Poker Player, poker players, Poker Tables, Poker Tournaments, prize money, Runaway Victory, Tight Race, Tournament Player, Westmenloaa

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 8:03 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.