Midway through the year and, to the surprise of no one who has followed high-stakes poker tournaments over the past few years, Alex Foxen is right near the top of the 2021 Global Poker Index Player of the Year standings. And it certainly wouldn't shock anyone if he won the award for the third consecutive time.
Foxen, a former college football tight end at Boston College, was crowned the GPI's top performer in 2018 and 2019. The award wasn't handed out last year due to the pandemic, which forced the cancellation of most events around the world.
Picking up where he left off
In 2017, Foxen cashed for just over $1.7 million, the first time he'd ever cracked the seven-figure mark in a single year. He was just getting started. The following year, he racked up over $6.6 million in cashes in live tournaments around the world, including a runner-up finish to Ike Haxton for $2.1 million in the $300,000 buy-in Super High Roller Bowl in Las Vegas.
That massive score catapulted the up-and-coming poker star at the time into first place in the GPI Player of the Year standings, which he held onto as the year concluded, beating out Stephen Chidwick, David Peters, and Justin Bonomo, who set a single-year record with over $25 million in cashes, to win the award.
Foxen would go on to ship the Global Poker Index Player of the Year award once again the following year, narrowly defeating Sean Winter, Bryn Kenney, and Kahle Burns.
This year, the New York native is back in the thick of things in the race for the top live tournament poker player in the world. He currently sits in second place with 2,674 points, just a tad behind Ali Imsirovic, who is at 3,095. Jesse Lonis is in third place with 2,409 points, Qing Liu sits in fourth place at 2,404, and Jordan Cristos rounds out the top five at 2,376.
Can he catch Imsirovic?
Foxen's chances of winning a third straight GPI Player of the Year award might be a bit out of his control. If Imsirovic continues to win so frequently like he's done the first seven months of the year, Foxen may never catch up.
Imsirovic already has eight high roller titles this year, four more than anyone else. Sean Perry, who is second behind Imsirovic on the PokerGO Tour standings, has four high roller wins in 2021. Foxen's a bit down on the PokerGO Tour leaderboard as he sits in ninth place. The Global Poker Index tracks all live tournaments around the world, whereas the PokerGO Tour only keeps score on results from PokerGO sanctioned events.
Foxen trails by just over 300 points in the GPI standings, which is essentially the equivalent of one major tournament win. He'll have plenty of opportunities in the coming months to win the award for a third straight time, including the fall World Series of Poker and numerous other tournaments scheduled this year.
Featured image source: PokerGO app
