The biggest winners of 2017
Find out who bossed live and online tournaments, online cash games and even SNGs last year.
Before we get our teeth into 2018 let's take a moment to gain inspiration from the players who got the lot last year. Few of the current ranking systems we have in poker are perfect, for example some only show wins and not losses, and others do not necessarily capture 100% of the results, but they serve as a reasonable guide nonetheless.
While Scott Blumstein may have won the biggest single prize in tournament poker last year and players like Fedor Holz captured all the headlines, Bryn Kenney had a standout year which saw him cash for the most in live tournaments. He cashed for $8,505,898 and remarkably only had one seven-figure score in that time.
| 1st | Bryn Kenney | $8,505,898 |
| 2nd | Scott Blumstein | $8,174,347 |
| 3rd | Christoph Vogelsang | $8,090,382 |
| 4th | Steffan Sontheimer | $7,052,322 |
| 5th | Fedor Holz | $6,380,187 |
| Results courtesy of TheHendonMob | ||
The best measure we have for online tournament success is the long standing and well respected PocketFives Leaderboard. This is always a fiercely contested leaderboard with some of the biggest names in online MTTs fighting for it.
Topping that leaderboard this year is online phenom Simon "C Darwin2" Mattsson who really has dominated online MTTs for the last few years. He pipped WCOOP Main Event champion Steven van Zadelhoff to the top, with 10,208.41 points in 2017.
That included a $178,883 score in the SCOOP High Main Event and a $123,963 prize in a PowerFest High Roller, but no single big result got him to the top, it was just a consistent year from a seriously tough MTT boss.
| 1st | C Darwin2 | 10,208 PLB points |
| 2nd | SvZff | 9,525 PLB points |
| 3rd | lena900 | 8,498 PLB points |
| 4th | josef_shvejk | 7,477 PLB points |
| 5th | veeea | 7,418 PLB points |
| Results courtesy of PocketFives | ||
Often rarely getting a mention in poker headlines these days, but SNGs are still a hotly contested format which produces six-figure years for some players.
The best measure for those games is clearly SharkScope which has a long standing leaderboard. This measures profit rather than turnover so it is a nice indicator of success.
The top spots are almost always Hyper Turbo HUSNG regulars and the one thing they don't include are Spin & Go winners (which would greatly skew the tables), but as you can see there is still a nice profit target for anybody who plays in SNGS in 2017.
| 1st | noqqx | $315,967 |
| 2nd | Saauron1 | $253,181 |
| 3rd | ZISMO7 | $229,162 |
| 4th | slayerv1fan | $144,451 |
| 5th | razvanel1987 | $140,424 |
| Results courtesy of SharkScope | ||
Finally we have the biggest and most railed leaderboard of any online poker year, the online cash game rankings. Like every other ranking they are flawed, as not all hands are captured and they only cover nosebleed games (so players who crush $10/$20 and $25/$50 like cumicon get missed out). However, for the first full year, HighStakesDB, who provide the stats, have released all players details, not just the ones who have not opted out of tracking.
Unknown grinder 'BERRI SWEET' topped the rankings with $1,769,395 this year, while Timofey Kuznetsov also ended the year up seven figures.
Unlike the other ranking systems, cash game losses are also tracked, so spare a thought for Sami Kelopuro who is down seven figures for the year. Also worth noting is the $777,373 loss for Dani Stern, which was enough to see him officially retire from the game last year.
TOP WINNERS
TOP LOSERS
How was your 2017? Let us know in the comments:
