Adrian Mateos Named 2017 Poker Player of the Year

US pro Bryn Kenney may won $8,505,897 on the live tournament circuit this year to become the highest earning player of 2017, but it was Spain’s Adrian Mateos with $5,881,229 in winnings who would eventually finish the Player of the Year race in pole position.
In addition, Adrian Mateos also took home the GPI Player of the Year award after earning a total of 3,504.71 points based upon the competition’s rather complex calculation system.
The CardPlayer POY race awards points depending upon a range of factors, not least of which includes the size of tournament buy-ins. Following an exciting finish in December, Mateos then managed to secure the victory with 7,220 POY Points, putting him only slightly in front of Bryn Kenney with 7,173 points, but a fair distance ahead of other nearest rivals Fedor Holz (5,875), Koray Aldemir (5,510), and Justin Bonomo (5,144).
At the start of December, however, Mateos was lying in 5th place on the leaderboard, and in order to accomplish his impressive feat he had to amass a massive 2,000 POY Points during the month. Mateos subsequently managed to do just that after a stunning December in which he cashed in at seven tournaments, including one runner-up finish, three third place finishes, and two fourth place finishes.
Meanwhile, Daniel Negreanu earned $2,792,104 and no titles in 2018 for 2,971 points, placing him at number 43 on the POY Leader Board. Interestingly, the Team PokerStars Pro also published a more detailed breakdown of his buy-ins and results over the year via his Full Contant Poker blog, which then revealed a unique insight into the tough nature of trying to earn a living from the live circuit. In total, Negreanu ended up spending $2,874,164 in buy-ins, resulting in an $86,140 loss for the pro overall, and as he then wrote:
“Considering my average buy in on the year was $40,481 this is about as close as you can get to breaking even. In fact, after my $936,000 score I was up on the year but played a couple of the one day $25k events at Bellagio, rebought a few times, and ended the year in the red.”
Over the past five years, though, Negreanu said that he had earned $8.7 million in tournament profit, with the figure obviously not including sponsorship deals or staking arrangements with other players. He also said that he would sell 50% of his action for this year’s $1 Million One Drop event as it is “a bit of a crazy amount of money to risk in one tournament.”