With four months of 2026 already passed, the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (POY) rankings are gradually taking shape. While there are still many poker tournaments to be held before the 2026 GPI Player of the Year is crowned, PokerNews believes it will be interesting to look back at some of the past POY champions and what kind of results they achieved to reach the top of the list.
Last month, we looked back at the champions from 2012 to 2016. Today, we'll focus on... 2017 to 2021This included top players like Adrian Mateos and Alex Foxen winning titles, while the global pandemic and the shutdown of live poker have reshaped the competitive landscape.
2017: Mateos narrowly defeats Kenney
Top 10 GPI Players of the Year 2017
| Ranking | player | country | integral |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | 3,504.71 |
| 2 | Bryn Kenney | United States | 3,478.06 |
| 3 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 3,341.89 |
| 4 | Koray Aldemir | Germany | 3,266.11 |
| 5 | Stefan Schillhabel | Germany | 3,236.48 |
| 6 | Sergio Aido | Spain | 3,196.93 |
| 7 | Dan Smith | United States | 3,180.30 |
| 8 | Ari Engel | Canada | 3,153.16 |
| 9 | Nick Petrangelo | United States | 3,134.62 |
| 10 | Rainer Kempe | Germany | 3,086.76 |
The 2017 GPI Player of the Year competition reached its final moments, with Spanish superstar Adrian Mateos narrowly defeating Bryn Kenney. After all results were tallied, Mateos finished with... 26.65 The difference of one integration point is crowned as POY.
MateOS started in 2017 He made deep rounds in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event, reaching the final two tables. Then in February, he finished fourth in a peripheral event at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Los Angeles Poker Classic, followed by a run in March...He finished as runner-up in the $25,000 Aria High Roller event, winning $186,000.
Also in March, Mateos cashed three times at the PokerStars Panama Championship before returning to the United States for the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Finals. There, he finished as runner-up in the $50,000 Super High Roller event, taking home $413,567.
Just a month later, the Spanish player won a €50,000 peripheral event at the Monte Carlo PokerStars Championship, earning a prize of €908,000. More six-figure wins followed throughout the year, including a $336,656 prize. This prize came from Mateos' victory in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Heads-Up Championship. In addition to the prize money, Mateos also won his third gold bracelet, becoming the youngest player in history to achieve this feat at just 22 years old.
In October, Mateos traveled to Macau to participate in the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series. There, he finished fourth in the Main Event, winning HK$6,950,000 (approximately US$890,084).
Before the end of 2017, Mateos won eight more prizes exceeding $100,000, enough to prevent Kenney from winning the POY title.
2018: Foxen surpasses 4,000 points
Top 10 GPI Players of the Year 2018
| Ranking | player | country | integral |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Foxen | United States | 4,095.52 |
| 2 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 3,787.26 |
| 3 | David Peters | United States | 3,776.97 |
| 4 | Justin Bonomo | United States | 3,763.02 |
| 5 | Jake Schindler | United States | 3,716.07 |
| 6 | Steve O'Dwyer | United States | 3,596.30 |
| 7 | Pavel Plesuv | Moldova | 3,503.07 |
| 8 | Adrian Mateos | Spain | 3,412.43 |
| 9 | Michael Soyza | Malaysia | 3,389.65 |
| 10 | Joe McKeehen | United States | 3,381.56 |
Alex Foxen amassed 24 winnings in 2018, including five victories. His first win came in February when he triumphed in the WPT Los Angeles Poker Classic $25,000 High Roller event, earning $424,625. Less than a month later, Foxen traveled to Macau to win the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau Super High Roller event, taking home the equivalent of $963,880.
Foxen's third victory came in June at The Venetian in Las Vegas. The former American football tight end defeated a field of 178 players in the $5,000 Central State Poker Tour (MSPT) event, taking home $239,000.
Despite Foxen's disappointing performance at the 2018 WSOP (with only two winning tickets), he quickly returned to winning ways at the 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, winning a $2,650 buy-in event for $208,452 and defeating his wife Kristen Foxen heads-up.
Two weeks later, Foxen finished third in a €50,000 high roller event at EPT Barcelona and fourth in a €25,000 high roller event, adding a total of €582,230 to his bankroll.
In October, Foxen finished as runner-up in the £5,300 partypoker MILLIONS event in the UK, earning £720,000 (approximately $937,706) after reaching a heads-up deal with champion Ioannis Angelou-Konstas.
Foxen had a strong finish to 2018, finishing with three top-four finishes at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas, including a $246,768 win. A 5,200 peripheral tournament. He then held a session at the PokerGO studio.He finished as runner-up in the 300,000 Super High Roller Bowl, winning a huge prize of $2,160,000, bringing a perfect end to his stellar year.
2019: Foxen reigns supreme for the second consecutive year.
Top 10 GPI Players of the Year 2019
| Ranking | player | country | integral |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Foxen | United States | 3,806.99 |
| 2 | Sean Winter | United States | 3,679.19 |
| 3 | Bryn Kenney | United States | 3,647.81 |
| 4 | Kahle Burns | Australia | 3,641.63 |
| 5 | Stephen Chidwick | United Kingdom | 3,637.94 |
| 6 | Rainer Kempe | Germany | 3,499.77 |
| 7 | Sam Greenwood | Canada | 3,487.10 |
| 8 | Manig Loeser | Germany | 3,434.91 |
| 9 | Timothy Adams | Canada | 3,377.88 |
| 10 | Ali Imsirovic | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3,377.59 |
In 2019, Foxen became the first player in history to win the GPI Player of the Year title for two consecutive years. Riding on his hot streak at the end of 2018, Foxen carried that momentum into 2019. He made it into the money three times in PCA events (including one victory), kicking off January with $904,040 in winnings!
In April, Foxen traveled to the Seminole Hard Rock poker tournament finals, taking home $180,000 and $545,000 in prize money respectively. That same month, he also won €155,440 and €610,550 at the EPT Monte Carlo.
Foxen made ten money runs at the 2018 WSOP, including an impressive 40th place finish in the Main Event, winning $211,945.
His first victory of 2019 came in October at the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble event in Florida. Foxen won $182,440 in the $20,000 High Roller event. Foxen secured another victory before the end of the year, albeit a late one. This comes after five cashes in December at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic.He won the 10,400 Main Event and earned $1,694,995; he was also the runner-up in the same tournament in 2017.
2020: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted rankings
Top 10 GPI Players of the Year 2020
| Ranking | player | country | integral |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Giorgiy Skhulukhiya | Georgia | 1,899.96 |
| 2 | Anatoliy Zyrin | Russia | 1,796.53 |
| 3 | Nick Pupillo | United States | 1,766.13 |
| 4 | Quan Zhou | China | 1,723.42 |
| 5 | Andrey Chernokoz | Russia | 1,633.32 |
| 6 | Ricardo Eyzaguirre | United States | 1,621.43 |
| 7 | Farid Jattin | Colombia | 1,619.50 |
| 8 | Martin Zamani | United States | 1,576.20 |
| 9 | Trung Pham | United States | 1,542.63 |
| 10 | Ari Engel | Canada | 1,536.41 |
The global COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted the GPI rankings in 2020, as lockdowns imposed by most governments brought live poker to an unprecedented standstill. However, before the tournaments closed, Giorgiy Skhulukhiya of Georgia won one event and subsequently took advantage of Russia's more lenient regulations in the latter half of the year to participate in more tournaments and win prize money.
Skhulukhiya won a $5,000 Main Event title at the Merit Poker Western in Cyprus in January, earning $220,643, and then won several more in Belarus in February. He also finished 16th in the €3,300 WPT Main Event in Germany in February, before the pandemic swept the globe.
Live poker returned in some regions in August. Sochi, Russia, opened its doors, and Skhulukhiya accumulated 12 winning records between August 6 and December 22. The biggest achievement was winning the Sochi Poker Carnival Super High Roller event, taking home a first-place prize of $50,571.
Skhulukhiya won a total of $353,163 in 2020, the lowest total prize money in GPI Player of the Year history, and a record that is unlikely to be broken and no one wants.
2021: Live Poker Returns, Imsirovic Stands Out
Top 10 GPI Players of the Year 2021
| Ranking | player | country | integral |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ali Imsirovic | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3,478.55 |
| 2 | Chance Kornuth | United States | 3,225.11 |
| 3 | Shannon Shorr | United States | 3,141.45 |
| 4 | Uri Reichenstein | Israel | 3,138.32 |
| 5 | Sergio Aido | Spain | 3,090.55 |
| 6 | Johan Guilbert | France | 3,020.66 |
| 7 | Chad Eveslage | United States | 3,006.84 |
| 8 | Sean Perry | United States | 2,997.08 |
| 9 | Brock Wilson | United States | 2,981.38 |
| 10 | Jason Koon | United States | 2,969.76 |
Live poker returned in the first few months of 2021, and despite numerous restrictions, Ali Imsirovic wasted no time returning to the tables. By the end of the year, Imsirovic had accumulated $6,094,964 in winnings, making it his best year to date in live poker.
Imsirovic won two PokerGO Circuit events in Las Vegas in February, earning a total of $530,170. Both events had only 14 entrants, and you could only beat the opponent in front of you.
In April, Imsirovic won another six-figure prize on the PokerGO Circuit. He won two tournaments. 25,000 events, and in aHe finished as runner-up in the 10,000 event, winning a total prize of US$721,300.
The Bosnian athlete then won a match at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas in May. A 10,000-game series, adding another $200,200, followed by another win in June.He earned another $217,800 in the 10,000 PokerGO Circuit events. In July, he won two more PokerGO Circuit events and a fifth-place finish, earning $545,500.
Between August and October, Imsirovic won four PokerGO Tour events and reached the final table in four other events. These results resulted in a single prize of $529,000.
Imsirovic in an October event He won a WSOP Circuit gold ring in 5,200 online tournaments, and then continued his PokerGO Circuit dominance in November with another victory and two final tables. Then, he won a tournament at the postponed 2021 WSOP in Las Vegas.He finished sixth in the $50,000 High Roller event, winning $278,840.
As 2021 drew to a close, Imsirovic won a $25,500 High Roller event at the WPT Rock 'N' Roll Poker Open, earning $695,355 and perfectly capping off an impressive year.
Common Mistakes Review: Why Do You Keep Losing? The Problem Lies Here
Most players lose money not because of luck, but because they repeat the same mistakes.
These debriefings will help you identify the most common mistakes and understand how to correct them:
Why does constantly calling cause you to lose money?
[Bluff Imbalance] What are the costs of excessive bluffing?
Why do you always lose on the last street? [Never fold]
[Slow Play Error] Why do I lose big pots when I play slowly?
What's the problem with betting too small?
Why do people lose money when they bet too much?
[Emotional Issues] How do emotions affect your decision-making?
[Range Misjudgment] Analysis of Errors Caused by a Lack of Understanding of Range
[Location Ignore] What are the consequences of ignoring location?
[Misinterpreting People] The Impact of Misinterpreting an Opponent's Behavior
Avoiding mistakes is more important than learning new skills. By reviewing these common mistakes, you can quickly identify your weaknesses, correct your decision-making habits, and reduce unnecessary losses.
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