Eight categories are recognized at the EPT Awards and we're going to go through each of them individually.
Player of the Year
Last year this honor was bestowed upon Max Lykov for his win in Kiev and a long list of other notable results. This year it's the flamboyantly-named Fernando Antonio Fontoura Brito running away with the POY race.
Brito has been a fixture on the EPT recently, playing every event but one this season. Brito has been piling up the POY points in the side events and has now passed the $700,000 mark in lifetime earnings. Impressive when you see his first result came in November of 2009.
It's safe to assume this isn't life-changing money for Brito. He owns factories in Angola and sprawling farms in Brazil.
As you can see from the leaderboard, it's going to take some work to overtake Brito for POY.
1 Fernando Brito 3750 2 Konstantin Puchkov 2330 3 John O'Shea 2225 4 Dario Alioto 2075 5 Kent Lundmark 1780 6 Martin Jacobson 1610 7 Tomer Berda 1585 8 Vegard Nygaard 1580 9 John Eames 1550 10 Kristijonas Andrulis 1535Best Omaha Player
Dario Alioto is leading the run for Omaha honors but the gap between him and second is a bit closer than in the POY race.
1 Dario Alioto 1025 2 John O'Shea 900 3 Bjorn Verbakel 550 4 Joel Casper 500 4 Sam Chartier 500 4 Philip Junghuber 500 4 Niclas Fjellstrom 500 4 Bartolome Gomila Romero 500 4 Stig Härold 500 4 Gary Mills 500 11 Kevin Michel Derwael 500
Best Mixed Game Player
The race for best mixed game player is neck and neck, with Dario Alioto just a few points back from Matt Ashton. Greg Raymer, Marcel Luske and Chris Bjorin also find themselves on the board.
1 Matthew Ashton 1075 2 Dario Alioto 1050 3 Anders Berg 850 4 John O'Shea 825 5 Greg Raymer 580 6 Marcel Luske 550 7 Allen Chang 500 7 Florian Bussmann 500 7 Sebastien Sabic 500 7 Ofir Abramovici 500 7 Benjamin Pollak 500 7 Chris Bjorin 500Best Heads-Up Player
Diogo Veiga looks solid to win best heads-up player. Richard Gryko, Nikolay Evdakov and Annette Obrestad also have points.
1 Diogo Veiga 860 2 Richard Gryko 825 3 Nikolay Evdakov 750 3 Daniel Colman 750 5 Santeri Valikoski 675 5 Mark Radoja 675 7 Tom Pomponio 500 7 Pieter de Vries 500 7 Annette Obrestad 500 7 Alexander Roumeliotis 500Best Country
The award for best performance by a country looks to be calculated by dividing the total number of entrants representing that country by the number of times they cash.
The Czech Republic took this one last season.
Rank Country Entrants Cashes Percentage 1 Belgium 98 18 18,37% 2 Romania 122 22 18,03% 3 Spain 228 41 17,98% 4 Norway 116 20 17,24% 5 UK 399 68 17,04% 6 Italy 339 55 16,22% 7 Finland 142 23 16,20% 8 France 755 121 16,03% 9 Russia 334 51 15,27% 10 USA 1101 168 15,26%Best Online Qualifier
An award is given for the player who is most successful at qualifying for EPT events through PokerStars.com.
1 Martin Jacobson 1940 2 Pierre Neuville 1564 3 Anton Ionel 1400 4 Michael Eiler 1200 5 Dmitry Vitkind 1188 6 Konstantinos Nanos 1150 7 Chris Oliver 1120 8 Kevin MacPhee 1000 9 Giuseppe Pantaleo 950 10 Sam Stein 940Player's Choice Award
Last year Kevin MacPhee took this one. Voting will be open to EPT players via an online survey released near the end of the season.
Best Achievement Award
Another award decided by players' votes, last year's achievement award went to Allan Baekke for winning Snowfest and then barely missing the final table at the next event in San Remo.
Visit www.pokerlistings.com