GPI Player of the Year August Recap: Dan Smith Back on Top; Jason Koon in the Top Ten

David “ODB” Baker started the month of August atop the Player of the Year standings, followed by Marvin Rettenmaier(PoY#2), Jonathan Duhamel(PoY#3), Dan Smith (PoY#4), Kyle Julius (PoY#5), Phil Ivey (PoY#6), Daniel Negreanu (PoY#7), Andrew Lichtenberger (PoY#8), Tommy Vedes (PoY#9), and Samuel Chartier (PoY#10).

The Battle for the Lead

By mid-month Baker had to relinquish the lead to Marvin Rettenmaier. Rettenmaier added 120 points to his PoY score and took over the lead when he won the WPT Merit Cypress Classic $4,000 NLHE Main Event. Erik Cajelais joined him at the final table of that event and earned 80 points for his 7^th place finish. That moved Cajelais, who at that point was PoY#11, up six spots to PoY#5, pushing Samuel Chartier out of the Top Ten.

Rettenmaier’s reign did not last long however. The very next week Dan Smith was back in the top spot. Smith had the lead at the beginning of July but lost it to Jonathan Duhamel and then subsequently to Baker. His return to PoY#1 was due to gaining 153 points for his win in the EPT Barcelona €50,000 NLHE Super High Roller. Smith further cemented his lead the next week when he final tabled the EPT Barcelona €10,000 NLHE Heads-Up event adding an additional 64 points to his PoY score.

EPT Barcelona Shakes Up the Top Ten

While most of the changes in the standings in August were centered around the lead, the EPT Barcelona gave the other players in the Top Ten an opportunity to shake things up towards the end of the month. Duhamel, Negreanu, and Lichtenbergerall added points to their score in the fourth week of August. Duhamel gained 72 points for his 10^th place finish in the EPT Barcelona’s  €10,000 NLHE High Roller and moved up one spot to PoY#3. Negreanu cashed in the €5,000 NLHE Main Event and gained 55 points and moved up two spots to PoY#6. And Lichtenberger jumped up in the standings after finishing 11^th in the €10,000 NLHE High Roller and cashing in the €2,000 NLHE event. He earned a combined 108 points and moved up four spots to GPI#5.

Ivey and Koon Move Up

This week Phil Ivey returns to where he began August at PoY#6. Throughout the month he fell in the standings due to Cajelais, Negreanu, and Lichtenberger moving up, landing at PoY#9 last week. But the 84 points he earned for his 8^th place finish in the Macau High Stakes Challenge $258,000 NLHE Super High Roller puts him back where he started. Also back in familiar territory this week is Jason Koon (PoY#10). At the beginning of the year Koon spent several weeks at PoY#2 but had fallen to PoY#22 by last week. This week he returns to the Top Ten, pushing Tommy Vedes down to PoY#11, after adding 66 points to his score for finishing 19^th in the $3,500 WPT Legends of Poker Main Event.