2016 POY: David Peters beats Fedor Holz to take Title

German pro Fedor Holz made all the poker headlines in 2016 after enjoying a phenomenal year in which he won an incredible six tournament titles, amassing $16,484,154 along the way. In fact, the 23 year-old looked sure to run away with the Poker Player of the Year award as recently as mid-November.
By the end of the month, however, US pro David Peters managed to shorten the 1300 point gap to just 500 points after going on a run which saw him finish runner-up at the $25k Aria High Roller for $168,400, and take down the $50k Aria Super High Roller for $511,970.
December’s performance proved every bit as impressive for Peters, too, who started the month by making two final tables at the Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic to move within 250 points off Holz. Peters subsequently followed up by booking a 3rd place finish at the €5,300 EPT Prague Main Event for €397,300 ($420,499), by which stage his CardPlayer ranking reached 8,181 points, giving him a healthy lead over Holz still stuck on 7058 points.
Nevertheless, David Peters had one last surprise in store before the year’s tournament schedule drew to a close, and on the 28th December he triumphed at the $25k Aria High Roller for $293,232, to capture the CardPlayer POY title in style.
While David Peters was on the ascendancy during the last month and a half of 2016, Fedor Holz, on the other hand, was unable to book a cash over the same period and so ultimately had to be satisfied finishing the runner-up on the Player of the Year leaderboard.
While David Peters earned $7,271,415 from live events throughout the year, though, Holz made more than twice that amount, adding $16,484,153 to his life-time earnings that now total $20,321,184.
2016 POY Leader Board
1: David Peters (8,601)
2: Fedor Holz (7058)
3: Justin Bonomo (6020)
4: Ari Engel (5653)
5: Jake Schindler (5178)
6: Sam Soverel (4989)
7: Chance Kornuth (4838)
8: Dan Smith (4799)
9: Connor Drinan (4637)
10: Ankush Mandavia (4460)