For the third consecutive year three inspiring poker players will be crowned Spirit of Poker Award winners at the PokerListings Battle of Malta.
Voting for the awards has been open for several weeks now and participation has been bigger than ever before.
Thousands of readers from across Europe, North America and the world have cast their votes in three categories - Most Inspiring Player, Rising Star and Living Legend - and a few favorites have emerged.
Just three weeks remain for you to help select which players will make the final shortlists of three to be voted on by the PokerListing panel.
Here are the categories, nominees and current standings as we head towards the voting deadline:
Filatov, Agarwal, Somerville Inspiring Voters
In our marquee category, Most Inspiring Player, Russian young gun Anatoly Filatov has jumped to the lead at the moment with a large outpouring of local votes.
Close behind Filatov in second and third are Aditya Agarwal from India and PokerStars/Twitch star Jason Somerville.
Reigning WSOP champ Martin Jacobson is still in good shape in fourth place but Davidi Kitai, Max Pescatori, Leo Margets and Dominik Nitsche will need a late rush of votes to catch the top three.
Have any of our nominees inspired you to pick up the game or kept your spirits high over the past 12 months?
Help recognize their efforts and vote on our Most Inspiring Player page.
Shark Fans Stay True
Vote totals are extremely close in our Living Legends category where we honor players who’ve been at the tables for decades but still more than hold their ground against today's rising stars.
The eight nominees in this category are Humberto Brenes, Jackie Cachia, James Woods, Barry Greenstein, Dan Heimiller, Padraig Parkinson, Konstantin Puchkov and Erik Seidel.
As you might expect high-stakes legend Seidel is ensconced in the top three but the two nominees with the most votes right now are Costa Rican groundbreaker Humberto “The Chark” Brenes and local hero Jackie “Pokermama” Cachia from Malta.
At the moment it’s a dead heat between the two so every vote counts. Seidel isn’t far behind so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he overcame the gap quickly.
Who do you think is the most impressive player over 50 over the past 12 months? Click through to the Living Legend voting page to have your say.
Carrel, Urbanovich and Holz Fans Rise to Occasion
The category that draws the most attention from our readers is our Rising Star award for emerging young players who very effectively dispute the idea that poker can’t be beat anymore.
This year it’s an all European group if you disregard the odd one out in this category, Claudico – a poker-playing program devised at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
At this stage, though, it doesn't look like Claudico is going to win. Usually we wouldn’t disclose who’s last but it’s become apparent that nobody wants a poker program to be awarded a prize.
Instead the race is on between Charlie Carrel, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Fedor Holz although all the other players – Pablo Gordillo, Sabina Hiatullah, Adrian Mateos and Akira Ohyama (in alphabetical order) - are within striking distance.
Read more about the impressive candidates and vote on our Rising Stars page here.
Get Your Votes in Before September 13!
This year’s voting for the PokerListings Spirit of Poker Awards will close on September 13 at 12 PM CET. When time is up the PokerListings jury will then deliberate and select the winners from the top three votegetters in each category.
The winners are invited to the official Spirit of Poker Awards ceremony at the 2015 Battle of Malta where, if you're in the field, you’ll have the chance to play against them.
The 2015 Battle of Malta runs Nov. 4-9 with the €550 NLHE main event guaranteeing a €500,000 prize pool. Last year the tournament smashed the guarantee with 1,447 entries and an over €700,000 prize pool.
That made the Battle of Malta the largest standalone tournament in Europe for 2014 which contributed to it being named “Europe’s best low buy-in tournament” at the European Poker Awards.
Join us this year by qualifying online, buying a VIP package or winning a free VIP package in our Karaoke clip contest!
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