1. Daniel Negreanu
Points: 1,274.66
Last Month: 1
Daniel Negreanu has held the top spot the last three month but hasn’t taken his foot off the gas. He added 260.5 POY points with two WSOP Europe finishes. He cashed in the WSOPE Main Event in 25th place for 17 POY points and then won his sixth career bracelet in the WSOPE High Roller event.
Not only did he add more jewelry to his wrist, he also won the WSOP POY title in the last possible event to pull ahead of Matthew Ashton. Negreanu is the first player to repeat after winning the title in 2004.
Negreanu was already considered one of the best players in the world and after his 2013 campaign he left no doubts. He won two WSOP bracelets, made seven final tables, cashed 14 times and earned more than $3.2 million — and still can add to that total.
Negreanu is securely in the lead by more than 400 points — which means anyone looking to unseat him will have to win at least one major event and final table another to come close.
2. David Peters
Points: 868.06
Last Month: 4
David Peters doesn’t have the star power of Tom Dwan, doesn’t have the recognition of Phil Hellmuth and doesn’t have the aura of Phil Ivey, but what he does have is a better year than all three combined.
The tournament cashing machine collected payouts at 10 different tournament series with 20 overall cashes, eight final tables and $1.2 million on the year. He picked up eight cashes and one final table at the WSOP in Las Vegas alone, plus a fourth-place finish in the WSOP Europe High Roller that pushed him into the second spot of the rankings.
4. Ryan Riess
Points: 856.84
Last Month: Not Ranked
The 2013 WSOP Main Event champ earned $8.1 million and 675 POY points for his landmark win under the bright lights of ESPN’s live broadcast. His life-changing win catapulted him from relative obscurity (as far as POY is concerned) to inside the top five spots.
Though he has only been playing poker professionally for a year, Riess picked up 21 cashes on the circuit this year cutting his teeth on the live MTT grind. He traveled to six of the WSOP Circuit stops on the schedule.
He finished in 11th place in a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event at the WSOP and cashed in 110th place in the Millionaire Maker. Other highlights of his year include 10 cashes in Los Angeles split between the WSOP Circuit at the Bike and the LAPC at the Commerce and cashing in 68th place in a stacked field at the WPT Borgata Poker Open in September.
7. Noah Schwartz
Points: 804.78
Last Month: Not Ranked
After Noah Schwartz’s recent success at WSOP Europe he was finally able to remove himself from the list of best poker players without a bracelet. He broke through with a big win in the Mixed Max Pot Limit Omaha event when he defeated Ludovic Lacay on his own turf to win $142,880 and 168 POY points all while he was battling a terrible case of food poisoning.
His bracelet win came just three days after he finished fourth in the Mixed Max No Limit Hold’em event. He would have had a chance for back-to-back bracelet wins if not for a bad beat in the semifinal round against eventual champ Darko Stojanovic.
Schwartz cashed nine times, made three final tables in standard tournament formats and padded his bankroll by nearly $900,000. He moved up another few spots in the standings after returning from the WSOPE just days later with a sixth-place finish in the Isle Open Main Event in Florida.
9. Philipp Gruissem
Points: 788.65
Last Month: 18
Philipp Gruissem is one of a group of young Germans that have risen to the top of the poker world and he particularly shines in big buy-in events. Just three of Gruissem’s 11 cashes have come in events with entrance fees less than $10,000.
The average buy-in from his 2013 results is $41,158 as he traveled to four continents racking up more than $3.5 million in winnings.
Gruissem’s latest windfall came from the WPT Alpha8 event in London for $1.3 million but didn’t count for any POY points due to field size. Still, he moved up inside the top 10 spots courtesy of his third-place finish at the WSOPE High Roller event.
