On Friday night the Global Poker Awards was back for the first time since Covid lockdowns in a glorious celebration of all things poker, held at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
This year was especially sweet to see the greats of the game mingling in-person once again, a precursor to the joyous rebound live poker is set to see this year as we move towards a little more normalcy the world over once again with regard to public restrictions.
No surprise to see the young Ali Imsirovic winning an award after the year he’s bad, but three was unexpected! “I feel like I won this one because Addamo isn’t here, to be honest,” the Bosnian-American pro player joked as he went on to scoop Players’ Choice for Toughest Opponent along with PokerGO Tour Player of the Year and the prestigious GPI Poker Player of the Year, making him clear and away the biggest winner of this year’s awards ceremony.
Other notable winners of the night included GPI Female Poker Player of the Year, won by Nadya Magnus, Best Final Table Performance, won by Adam Friedman for his performance in this year’s WSOP Event #36: the $10,000 Dealer’s Choice 6-max Championship.
Jamie Kerstetter won Twitter Personality of the Year, Kevin Mathers took down the Services to Poker award and Brad Owen got Best Vlogger, whilst the much-loved Doug Polk took down the fun Fans’ Choice: Best Hand for this epic fold he made against Phil Hellmuth in High Stakes Poker Season 8. Lest we forget, our boy Joe Stapleton along with partner James Hartigan took down Best Podcast for the hilariously-titled Poker in the Ears.
It was such a great show to watch this year, and if you missed it, you can catch the whole thing right here on Youtube.
We’ll also be talking it over as always on our PokerDeals Discord. Hop on and let us know what you thought!
Images courtesy of GPI
