American Poker Awards Rewards Top Players Jason Mercier & Ari Engel

The third annual Global Poker Index (GPI) American Poker Awards (APA) recognized top players like Maurice Hawkins, Ari Engel, and Jason Mercier for their achievements in the poker industry. The APA was recently held at the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

Ari Engel was given the award for the Tournament Performance of the Year for his stunning performance at the Aussie Millions Main Event. Maurice Hawkins took the Breakout Performance of the Year award for his career-best win of $581,000 at the World Series of Poker Circuit in 2016, where he won four rings, which included three Main Events.

Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier received the Moment of the Year award for his amazing week-long run at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), which saw him win two bracelets, one runner-up spot and an eighth place in a tournament series with four $10K events. In addition to this award, Mercier also won the 2016 GPI WSOP Player Of The Year for topping the WSOP leaderboard.

Global Poker Index

In a statement Mercier said,

It was really cool to win Moment of the Year for 2016. I’m not sure I have ever had or will ever have another week like I experienced during the WSOP last summer. Getting first, second and then first in three consecutive championship events definitely was an amazing.

Mercier added that he had wanted to win the WSOP Player of the Year award ever since the first time he played at a WSOP tournament in 2008. David Peters took home the GPI Player Of The Year award for topping the American Player leaderboard for the year.

Winners were chosen based on Global Poker Index rankings and results from Hendon Mob tournaments. The awards were decided using a two-part process which started with a nominating panel identifying four finalists and then an APA jury doing the final selection.

Lance Bradley from the gaming site PocketFives took the Media Content of the Year award for his report ‘Bob, Charlie and a Life-Changing WSOP Main Event Journey’, while the Media Person of the Year was given to Joe Stapleton, who is a regular co-commentator for PokerStars live tournaments streams with James Hartigan.

The Event Of The Year award went to the Super High Roller Bowl, which is held annually at the ARIA in Las Vegas. Team PokerStars Pro Jason Somerville received the Twitch Streamer of the Year award which is one of the four new awards introduced this year.