A new year is upon us and, as usual, it has come with new expectations. Some of them will probably be met, others will be reset, and there will certainly be some disappointments by the end of the year. In terms of poker, the global community is known to be a highly demanding one, always looking for innovation, growth, development, and the most profound quality of action.
Yet, we should not forget that poker is a game full of unexpected turns, one whose course cannot be predicted with the exactness some may wish for. Big things may happen in poker this year, big changes may be introduced, hopefully positive ones, new stars may emerge on both the live and online poker scene, old, well-known, stars may re-emerge.
Although online poker has become extremely popular over the years, particularly after Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Championship after qualifying for the event by winning an online satellite on PokerStars, live tournament poker still creates an unmatched thrill both for players and fans of the game.
Last year, PokerStars announced that it would scrap the EPT, LAPT, UKIPT, and all other live festivals it had organized over the years in different parts of the world, replacing them with the PokerStars Championship and Festival formats. The PokerStars Championship Bahamas is set to kick off today and there will certainly be a high concentration of big poker stars and poker enthusiasts at the host venue – Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas Casino.
As a new year has begun and as the first big poker event on the poker calendar is just hours away, Casino News Daily has compiled a quick and by no means complete list of the poker pros to look for this year. Our list includes players from around the world to have been particularly active or inactive on the felt over the course of 2016; players whose performance will be closely watched in 2017 by us and perhaps by many others.
David Peters
It could be said that 2016 was a good year for David Peters and certainly his most profitable one. The player cashed more than $7.5 million in different live tournaments, including a number of high rollers. His fantastic run over the year and particularly during its final months won him the 2016 GPI Player of the Year award. What is more, the player also became the Card Player Player of the Year, after collecting the most points in the popular poker magazine’s ranking.
It will be interesting to see whether Peters will retain his momentum from last year into 2017. Our guess is he will do.
Qui Nguyen
WSOP Main Event winners are always objects of great interest in the months after their triumph. The 2016 WSOP Main Event Champion – Qui Nguyen – and his performance on the live tournament scene will, too, be watched closely. The player has not been very active since November, when he scooped the $8,005,310 for winning the world’s most prestigious No-Limit Hold’em tournament. However, in most cases, an accomplishment of this scale acts as a great motivators, so Nguyen may increase his activity and profitability in 2017 and why not scoop another WSOP Main Event title.
Fedor Holz
If there was a major high roller event in 2016, German Fedor Holz was usually there. And he won a great amount of those events over the past twelve months, collecting more than $16.4 million for doing what few others had done before.
In mid-2016, Holz announced that from that point on, he would play live poker only recreationally. And then won some more events. Whether the young German will keep his word to appear in tournaments only occasionally or he will return to the live poker scene with a bang – only time will tell.
Erik Seidel
Erik Seidel is one of poker’s biggest names. Eight WSOP gold bracelets and enviable cash record spanning back to 1998 present enough evidence to this statement. With live tournament earnings of $31,013,774, the player is very close to dethrone Daniel Negreanu as the All-Time Money List’s number one.
Seidel has been particularly active on the felt over the past two years and now he has a great stimulus to maintain that activeness in 2017. Our guess is that the player will overpass Negreanu by mid-2017.
Maurice Hawkins
It could be said that Maurice Hawkins is a WSOP Circuit celebrity. Late last year, the player became the only one in the series’ thirteen-year history two win three Main Events in a single year. What is more, Hawkins won four WSOP Circuit gold rings in 2016. The player currently has a total of eight such pieces and is one of the few to have captured as many.
It will be interesting to follow whether he will be able to match his feat from last year and even improve it.
Ivan Luca
At the age of 23, Ivan Luca is Argentina’s most profitable player and the first one to have ever won a WSOP gold bracelet. The player has been a constant presence at EPT events over the years. We are keen to see how he would react to the new festival formats introduced by PokerStars and whether he would be just as active in those.
