Poker Central and Doug Polk Lead 4th American Poker Awards Nominees
Global Poker Index has announced the nominees for the 4th Annual American Poker Awards, presented by PokerStars, which will take place Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. PT at the Andaz West Hollywood in Los Angeles.
The 102 Nomination Panel members, consisting of industry leaders, poker pros and media members, have casted their votes to determine the 54 nominees up for 13 of the record 20 awards to be handed out at the ceremony.
Poker Central has received the most nominations with six direct nominations for categories including Moment (Tom Dwan’s return to poker on American soil on Poker After Dark), Event (Super High Roller Bowl and Poker Masters Event #1), Broadcaster (Ali Nejad and Nick Schulman), Content (Dead Money: A Super High Roller Bowl Story), Podcast (PokerCentral Podcast), and Poker’s Biggest Influencer (Cary Katz).
Doug Polk leads the individual nominations with three, up for Video Blogger, Poker’s Biggest Influencer, and Tournament Performance for his WSOP One Drop High Roller win.
Others to garner multiple award nominations include Daniel Negreanu (Biggest Influencer and Video Blogger), Joe Ingram (Video Blogger and Poker Life Podcast), Matt Savage (Biggest Influencer and Industry Person) and Lance Bradley (Journalist and Content).
Also of note, PokerNews is represented in the Podcast of the Year category for the PokerNews Podcast (Brent Harrington, Sarah Herring, Matt Parvis).
2017 American Poker Awards Categories and Nominees
| Breakout Player | Dejuante “DJ” Alexander |
| Michael Del Vecchio | |
| William Alex Foxen | |
| Artur Papazyan | |
| Tournament Performance | Scott Blumstein (WSOP Main Event) |
| Darren Elias (WPT Fallsview) | |
| Bryn Kenney (PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo Super High Roller) | |
| Doug Polk (WSOP One Drop High Roller) | |
| Moment of the Year | 70-year-old John Smith makes back-to-back WSOP 10K Heads-Up finals |
| Ema Zajmovic becomes first female player to win open event on World Poker Tour | |
| Vanessa Selbst’s Full House loses to Gaelle Baumann’s Quads early in the WSOP Main Event | |
| Tom Dwan makes his return to America, stars on Poker After Dark reboot on PokerGo | |
| Event of the Year | Super High Roller Bowl (ARIA Las Vegas) |
| partypoker MILLIONS North America (Playground Poker Club Montreal) | |
| Poker Masters Event #1 (ARIA Las Vegas) | |
| World Series of Poker Main Event (Rio Las Vegas) | |
| Mid-Major Circuit | Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) |
| RUNGOOD Poker Series | |
| WPTDeepStacks (WPTDS) | |
| World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) | |
| Journalist of the Year | Drew Amato |
| Lance Bradley | |
| BJ Nemeth | |
| Steve Ruddock | |
| Jessica Welman | |
| Broadcaster of the Year | Nick Schulman |
| Joseph Stapleton | |
| Lon McEachern | |
| Ali Nejad | |
| Media Content | Adrian Moreno in tears after Little One for One Drop win; days after losing his friend (Drew Amato, photo for WSOP.com) |
| Dead Money: A Super High Roller Bowl Story (PokerCentral documentary) | |
| Poker Brat: The Phill Hellmuth Story (Phil Hellmuth, published by D&B Publishing) | |
| Resilience Defined: Sheddy Siddiqui Raising his Two Boys #ForCathy (Lance Bradley, article for PocketFives) | |
| Podcast | PokerCentral Podcast (Brent Hanks, Will O’Connor, Remko Rinkema) |
| PokerNews Podcast (Brent Harrington, Sarah Herring, Matt Parvis) | |
| Poker Life Podcast (Joe Ingram) | |
| TwoPlusTwo Podcast (Terrence Chan, Ross Henry, Adam Schwartz) | |
| Video Blogger | Joe Ingram |
| Daniel Negreanu | |
| Andrew Neeme | |
| Doug Polk | |
| Poker Streamer | Jeff Gross |
| Bill Perkins | |
| Jason Somerville | |
| Jaime Staples | |
| Parker Talbot | |
| Industry Person | Tony Burns |
| Sean McCormack | |
| Adam Pliska | |
| Matt Savage | |
| Poker's Biggest Influencer | Cary Katz |
| Daniel Negreanu | |
| Doug Polk | |
| Matt Savage |
Additional APA honors to be awarded at the ceremony are:
- 2017 GPI American Player of the Year: Bryn Kenney
- 2017 GPI Female Player of the Year: Kristen Bicknell
- Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poker
- Charitable Initiative
- Jury Prize
- PocketFives Legacy Award
- People’s Choice Award for Poker Personality of the Year
The People’s Choice Award for Poker Personality of the Year, the only award determined by popular vote instead of by committee, is back this year after being absent from the docket the last two years. Voting is still open to the public here.
