Canadian pro Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek is currently lying atop of the Card Player ‘Online Player of the Year’ leaderboard on 7,046 points and $560,757 in winnings.
Amazingly, there are other players below Jarzabek in standing but with more winnings for the year, such as Raj “BadcardsAA” Vohra in 7th with 5,620 points and $965,732 in cashes.
The reason for the discrepency is how the points are awarded for the competition, which only includes online poker tournaments which have $100+ buy-in, 100+ players and a prize pool of $100,000 or more.
In addition to other nuances which explain the quirk, the tournaments also have to be played at either PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet, Bodog or Cake Poker.
The 37 year-old online pro took up the game after being laid up in bed for 8 months with a broken foot; the result of a baseball injury. He hasn’t looked back since and has now managed to accumulate $2,019,000 in lifetime winnings since 2006, including $152,643 from live tournament cashes.
Commenting on his remarkabe success, Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek said: “The biggest thing I tell everyone is follow your instincts. I think instinct is the one thing that sets people apart in poker. I mean if it was just about math then Bill Chen would win a lot more poker tournaments. Stay within your bank roll and follow your instincts and you will probably make out fine.”
Good luck to Jarzabek as he continues on his path to ‘Online Player of the Year’ glory, but with still a long way to go in the year he will continue to face major challenges from a whole host of other pros, such as Taylor Paur (2nd), Steve Gross (3rd), and kirbynator (4th) to mention just a few.
