The awards season is well and truly upon us and after success at the British Poker Awards and American Poker Awards, there was more trophy collecting for Team PokerStars at the Global Poker Index European Poker Awards, which took place at The Hilton hotel in Malta last night.
At the American Poker Awards Daniel Negreanu picked up Best Poker Ambassador, but despite his Romanian heritage Kid Poker was ineligible for the European equivalent of this award. He may not have won if he was as Team PokerStars Pro George Danzer deservedly picked up this gong. What you probably know about Danzer is that he’s the reigning WSOP Player of the Year having won two bracelets in Las Vegas in the summer and then a further one in Australia in October. He needed the hat-trick too as the Player of the Year race went down to the wire.
What you might not know, unless you’re part of the German poker community, is that during his successful summer Danzer was recording two or three video blogs a week, which he’d also done during SCOOP and repeated for WCOOP. The affable German also continues to do free coaching videos in the German poker community. He’s also, quite simply, has time for everyone and anyone. A fine ambassador indeed.
He wasn’t the only Team Pro to pick up a gong though as Liv Boeree picked up the GPI Female Player of the Year award, in fact she won one and a bit awards as REG – a charity she’s involved with – picked up the Charitable Initiative of the Year Award.
With three of the four nominations in the Event of the Year (over $2,000) a PokerStars victory was likely but would it go to Barcelona, Prague or Vienna? In the end the EPT was honoured for the latter event and Neil Johnson, Head of Live Poker Operations PokerStars Europe, believes it was the right choice. “EPT Vienna was a wonderful combination of destination, venue, partnership and player support,” he said.
It’s hard to argue with him as the event was staged in the beautiful Hofburg Palace, the former residence of the Habsburg dynasty. There was ample space for tournaments and cash games and it was needed as the Eureka Vienna Main Event attracted a record-breaking (at the time) 1,432 players.
Despite EPT Live and veteran PokerStars snapper Neil Stoddart being nominated for the Poker Media Content of the Year award, it’s fair to say that the consensus in the EPT Press Room was that the standout candidate for the award was Nosebleed, a documentary by Victor Saumont about French high stakes poker players Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic and Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau. Indeed Stoddart himself was on record as saying that Saumont, who writes the French language PokerStars Blog, was the only candidate in this category. High praise indeed for what’s been described as the best poker documentary ever. We interviewed Saumont during EPT Deauville and if you are yet to see Nosebleed, you can watch it right here
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Last but not least the most popular winner of the night was none other than Marc Convey, who picked up the Media Person of the Year award.
Holy Christ I won! So proud and happy. #EuropeanPokerAwards #mediapersonoftheyear
— Marc Convey (@The_Conv) March 25, 2015
Convey has worn many hats during his time in the poker industry, including assistant media coordinator, blogger and commentator. He’s been working for PokerStars, and other media outlets, on the EPT since Season 3 and as well as the flagship tour he has covered events for PokerStars on the UKIPT, Estrellas Poker Tour, Eureka Poker Tour and APPT.
But, it was for his work with his distinctive (and loud) voice, as much as his pen, that saw ‘The Conv’ pick up the award as his work in a commentary role on EPTLive was also recognised by the voting panel who included industry figures and players such as Juha Helppi and Anatoly Filatov.
A big congratulations to all those who were honoured last night especially our five winners.
Follow coverage of the EPT Malta Main Event on the EPT Malta Main Event page. There are plenty of side events going on, and the €10,000 High Roller starts at 1pm. Keep abreast of everything via the EPT App, available on Android or IOS
Photos of the GPI European Poker Awards are copyright of Lina Olofsson who writes the Swedish PokerStars Blog
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