Home / Poker News December 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Dan Smith GPI PoY Winner?
The Poker Grapevine – Dan Smith GPI PoY Winner?
Posted by: Jo Martin - Thu, 2012-12-20 12:14
Interestingly enough, contrary to most expectations, the GPI’s Player of the Year race got plenty of attention from the poker media and the poker world in general, and as the year draws to end, the hype has flared up even more. Of course it didn’t hurt that what looked like a jog in the park for Dan Smith has turned into something of a battle down the home stretch. Marvin Rettenmaier was the one who put up a late rally, by winning the
EPT Prague’s High Roller event, for a top prize of €365.3k. Before Rettenmaier’s late dash, Smith had lead the GPI PoY race for 17 consecutive weeks, a truly dominant showing on his part indeed. Rettenmaier’s win took him perilously close to the top spot though. The GPI PoY points that it earned him saw him draw within 20 points of the leader.
Of course, Smith wasn’t the one to be outdone either. It only took him a day to secure some more PoY points, padding his lead a bit by winning a turbo side-event featuring a €5k buy-in at the same
EPT stop.
With the holiday season right around the corner, Rettenmaier won’t really get any opportunities to pull within striking range of Smith though, so it currently looks like Smith is a lock for the top spot. There are still a few GPI qualifying events running before the end of the year, but they’re all small, which means that in order to rack up a decent number of points, Rettenmaier would have to do extremely well in several of these events. Of course, Rettenmaier may decide that he just wants to spend quality time with his family, in which case, the deal would be pretty much closed.
