The American Poker Awards, sponsored by PokerStars is back for its 3rd outing at the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills California on February 23, with the event getting underway at 8pm local time.
The awards celebrate the most influential and recognized actors of the American poker industry over the last year.
Awards Up For Grabs
Mike Sexton the 2015 Lifetime Achievement award winner and WPT Ambassador is up for a record three nominations. It comes on the heels of a stellar year for Sexton. His comeback victory at WPT Montreal in November qualifies him for the nomination of both Poker Moment of the Year and Tournament Performance of the Year. He is also up for Media Content of the Year for his Life’s a Gamble book that Sexton released in 2016.
PokerStars Team Pro Jason Mercier has already one award in the bag as WSOP Player of the Year—who can forgot his sick summer run—and David Peters picks up 2016 GPI Player of the Year outstripping Fedor Holz in the final weeks of the year. However, both men are also up for Poker Moment of the Year so one of them could be walking away with multiple trophies on the night.
Cate Hall already has an award in the bag as well. Having accumulated the most points as the 2016 American GPI POY Women’s Ranking Leader, Hall’s 2016 body of work put her far ahead of the rst of the competition, a feat which she will be awarded for on the the night of the ceremony.
In another category, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and World Poker Tour (WPT) will be fighting off competition from the Super High Roller Bowl and the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open for Event of the Year.
One of the new awards that will be handed out this year reflects the recent direction of the poker industry. Four poker livestreamers are up for the title of Twitch Streamer of the Year. Kevin Martin, Jaime Staples, Parker Talbot (perhaps better known as tonkaaaaP) and of course Jason Somerville are the nominees in the category.
The full list of nominations can be found here.
The Voting
The finalists in each of the categories were selected by a panel of 70 poker industry experts. Members of the poker media, tournament directors, organizers and other casino staff, members of the sports media and poker event sponsors made up the panel of poker experts that were tasked with making nominations for the awards categories.
In an effort to promote transparency, the list of those poker industry members that voted for the finalists has been made public on the American Poker Awards website.
The winners will be selected by the Jury, the names of which will not be revealed until the night of the ceremony.
If you would like to be there at the American Poker Awards that is hosted at the Sofitel Hotel, Beverly Hills, you can apply here.
