2008 European Poker Awards
Written by Roger S | Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008
2008 has all but drawn to a close and various organizations will be taking stock of who has performed best in the past year. The 2008 European Poker Award nominees have already been announced.
The awards ceremony will be held on January 15th at the Aviation Club in Paris.
The European Poker awards were constituted in 2001. The nominations are made by a panel of poker industry people and player representatives across Europe.
The European Poker Awards are handed out in several categories. One of the most awaited categories is “Rookie of the Year”. The favorite among the nominees are Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov who took the number one and number two places respectively in the WSOP 2008 Main Event.
Though Eastgate went home with the larger prize money he had less in hand after the two players paid their taxes in their respective countries. Last year the award was won by Soren Kongsgaard, who does not seem to have lived up to his initial promise. The only earlier winners in this category who have made a name for themselves later on are Juha Helppi (2003) and Patrik Antonius (2005).
The forerunners in the “Best Tournament Performance of the Year” category are Bertrand Grospellier, David Benyamine, Marty Smyth and Peter Eastgate. Marty Smyth recently won the Poker Million VII. This was the third time he had cashed in this tournament and a win was overdue. Benyamine and Grospellier have been consistent throughout the year. Grospellier has had nine cashes and two wins in major tournaments, while Benyamine has had eight cashes and one win. This award for the last two years has been going to women – Victoria Coren (2006) and Annette Obrestad (2007). There is also a “Best Player of the Year” category, which includes performances in cash games as well and this year largely covers the same list of nominees.
A category that draws a lot of interest is “Europe’s Leading Lady”. This year Sandra Naujoks, Isabelle Mercier, Kara Scott, Annette Obrestad and Svetlana Gromenkova are vying for the top honors. This category was introduced for the first time last year and was won by Katja Thater. Isabelle is the favorite with consistent performances throughout the year. Her best performance has been in the London EPT, where she placed ninth. Another interesting facet about Isabelle is that she has been nominated twice for the “Casino Staff Person of the Year”. This is because she worked as a poker dealer at the Aviation Club and became the poker room manager and the right-hand person to boss Bruno Fitoussi.
There is also an award for “Lifetime Achievement”. There are no nominations for this and the winner will be announced on the day of the award. This was instituted in 2003 and the most illustrious of the winners is Dave Ulliott in 2004. The first winner was Lucy Rokach. Barry Greenstein has described Lucy as “the best female No Limit Hold’em player in the world”. However the last time Lucy did anything notable was cashing in the WSOP Main Event in 2004.
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· Written by Roger S · Filed Under Poker News · Comments Off
