Ali Imsirovic has been officially crowned as the 2021 PokerGO Tour presented by Guaranteed Rate Player of the Year following a dominating year in PokerGO Tour-recognized events. Imsirovic's runaway win was worth an extra $200,000 in bonus money, joining the more than $6 million he picked up in PokerGO Tour winnings along the way. The "tour" recognizes all recorded cashes in events around the globe that feature buy-ins of $10,000 or more
Imsirovic, a native of Bosnia who moved to the United States at age 3, won 14 different recognized PokerGO Tour events during 2021, more than double the six wins each picked up by Michael Addamo and Sean Perry. The 26-year-old Imsirovic also led the 2021 tour with 34 total cashes for $6,028,321.
Imsirovic's winning points total of 4,364 far outdistanced runner-up Addamo's 3,083 tally. Perry logged 2,525 points to finish third. "It still feels pretty surreal, to be honest," Imsirovic told PokerGO. "I never thought I would accomplish something of this magnitude in poker. Next, the goal is to just keep trying to get better and solidify and keep proving that I belong here."
Despite Imsirovic's year-long domance, Addamo actually bested him in one important way, total winnings. Addamo logged just eight cashes in Tour-qualifying events, but those included several multi-million-dollar scores in Tour-eligible cashes. Those eight big cashes earned Addamo $9,418,837, easily outdistancing Imsirovic in that regard. (Addamo earned a $50,000 bonus as well.) PokerGO Tour 10th-place finisher Koray Aldemir also outearned Imsirovic on the year, based almost solely on the $8 million Aldemir collected for winning the 2021 WSOP Main Event.
The complete 2021 PokerGO Tour standings are available here.
Early 2022 PokerGO events firmed up
PokerGO has also confirmed the details for the early portion of its 2022 slate of events. The first PokerGO Tour-eligible event of 2022 will be the first of four high-roller events in the Venetian's ongoing DeepStack Extravaganza series; the high-roller event begins on January 5.
Later in January, PokerGO will also debut its new PokerGO Stairway To Millions series, The final four levels of this innovative series will also be PokerGO Tour eligible. The Stairway to Millions series, which will be held at the Aria beginning January 12, offers eight events, each with progressively higher buy-ins. The first event features a relatively modest $1,000 buy-in, but by the time the eighth and final event begins one week later, a seat at the table costs $100,000.
The Aria will remain the focus of PokerGO Tour action throughout February. Following the Stairway to Millions series, the PokerGO Cup returns on February 2 with eight more POY points-earning events, followed by the PokerGO Championship and several more Aria high-roller tourneys. The latest rendition of the PokerGO Tour schedule for 2022 is available here.
Featured image source: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego
