The year is nearing its end and it will not be long before the names of the GPI and GPI Player of the Year number ones will be announced. Poker professional Byron Kaverman is topping both rankings at present and given the fact that there are no major poker tournaments to take place before the end of 2015, the player is likely to become the big winner this year. So far, Kaverman has collected a total of 4,248.73 GPI points and 4,736.90 GPI Player of the Year points.
And despite his ranking 1st in both leaderboards, this does not mean that the American poker pro is the only player to have demonstrated excellent performance on the live circuit over the past 12 months. Belgian Davidi “Kitbul” Kitai has been another good example for consistency on the felt, even though he did not won any major event this year.
Following the latest update of the GPI ranking, Kitai re-entered its top ten and now ranks 8th with 3,697.25 points. As for his position in the GPI Player of the Year leaderboard, he is 28th with 3,461.80 points. In 2015, the player cashed in 16 EPT, PCA, WSOP, and Winamax events, collecting a total of $913,960 in those.
In February, Kitai won an EPT Season 11 Deauville No-Limit Hold’em Turbo Cash 8-Handed event for €45,930. In March, he took part in the inaugural EPT Season 11 Malta poker festival and scooped €41,100 for finishing 15th in the €10,300 High Roller event. The Belgian was also spotted at the tables of the 2015 edition of the WSOP. Kitai collected a payout of $111,134 for his 7th place in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship and cashed $17,282 in this year’s Main Event.
In October, Kitai had the chance to win the WSOP Europe €25,600 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller but could not hold up against 2010 WSOP Main Event Champion Johnathan Duhamel and had to content with the runner-up finish and a consolation prize of €342,620, his best live cash this year.
Most recently, the Belgian poker pro finished 9th in the EPT Season 12 Prague €10,300 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller 8-Handed for a payout of €61,110.
Overall, Kitai has accumulated the amount of $6,744,826 in live tournament winnings. He has cashed in as many as 86 events since the beginning of his career. The player is a one-time EPT Main Event winner, the holder of three WSOP gold bracelets, and one-time WPT winner. In other words, he is one of few players to have won what is known as poker’s triple crown.
He won his EPT title in 2012, when he took down the EPT Season 8 Berlin €5,300 Main Event for a payout of €712,000, his best live cash so far.
As for his WSOP gold bracelets, he collected his first piece in 2008, when he won the 39th Annual WSOP $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em for $244,583. The player captured his second bracelet in 2013 for winning the $5,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em for $224,560. Gold piece number three came in 2014, when Kitai won the $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed for $508,640.
In 2011, the player topped the field of a WPT Celebrity Invitational event, held at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. Although the tournament was not considered an official WPT event at first, it was later on recognized as such.
