On Saturday night a who's who of poker notables will descend on the PokerGO Studio at the ARIA Las Vegas for the 5th annual Global Poker Awards, starting at 5:30pm PT.
This year's GPAs will award distinctions in nearly 30 categories, including Best Final Table Performance, Poker Icon, Players Choice Toughest Opponent, and Breakout Player. Plus, with a number of Fans Choice categories on the ballot, the community's opinions come directly into play.
In addition, the Global Poker Index will honor its Players of the Year--KristenFoxen, BinWeng, and NickPupillo--for their achievements during the 2023 calendar year.
What to watch for
From BradOwen to CaitlinComeskey to WolfgangPoker--and on and on and on--the celebs of the poker world will take center stage to honor one another for their various contributions to the game we all love. Notably, both Comeskey and Wolfgang notched three nominations apiece--two of poker's brightest stars getting their well-deserved moment in the limelight.
Perhaps the toughest (pun very much intended) category to win--Players Choice: Toughest Opponent--sees StephenChidwick, AlexFoxen, IsaacHaxton, and JasonKoon named as the finalists. In all honesty, this category might as well be renamed to "Best Player in the World", or maybe "Most Intimidating Staredown" strikes a bit closer to the mark.
KevinMartin could steal a page or two from the playbooks of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs with a back-to-back win for Best Streamer. He's up against LexVeldhuis, BenjaminSpragg, and BertStevens -- not exactly a cakewalk in terms of competition.
We'll be rooting for our editor-in-chief BradWillis to bring home the silverware in the Best Media Content: Written category -- for his piece on the High Stakes Poker livestream. Joking aside, all of the nominees in that category deserve their well-earned plaudits. Just not as much as Brad.
Will the Irish Poker Open Main Event overcome all odds to win the Best Event award? It's going to be a tough ask to take home the gong, going up against the likes of last year's winner the WPT World Championship, the record-breaking WSOP Main Event, and the WPT Prime Championship, but everybody loves an underdog story.
The Best Broadcaster category pits NickSchulman, HenryKilbane, AliNejad, and JeffreyPlatt against one another in what might be the most competitive category of the night. There's a reason these four guys were nominated as finalists -- they're just the best at it, plain and simple. Although, after a stint moonlighting as poker's grim reaper, Platt might be too controversial of a choice for the community to stomach.
2022 GPA highlights
Highlights from last year's ceremony include Ethan "Rampage" Yau (Best Vlogger and Fans' Choice: Poker Personality) winning a brace of awards alongside StephenSong (GPI Overall and Mid-Major POTY).
The hand heard 'round the world--RobbiJadeLew's now-infamous J-4 hand against Garrett Adelstein--won the award for Best Hand of 2022. While no one was really sure what made the hand the "best", it did dominate the poker world's attention like nothing else and that counts for something.
MattBerkey and his crew took home the prize for Best Podcast for the OnlyFriendsPodcast, an impressive feat for newcomers to the podcasting scene.
The entirety of the 5th annual Global Poker Awards ceremony will stream live on PokerGO and its YouTube channel starting at 5:30pm PT.
