Duhamel already has four POY-eligible cashes this year

Six weeks into the year and we already have the third lead change in the 2012 BLUFF Player of the Year race.  Jonathan Duhamel debuted on top post-PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, but Oliver Speidel unseated him after a strong run at the Aussie Millions.  However, thanks to a side event final table at EPT Deauville, Duhamel is now back in the driver’s seat.

Duhamel’s eighth place finish in the €2,000 No Limit Hold’em side event in Deauville, France earned him 42 POY points and a more than thirty point lead over Speidel.  Duhamel was far from the only player to benefit from a trip to the latest EPT stop though.

In fact, the player who benefited the most from the France trip was Dutch player Ruben Visser, who followed up his eighth place finish in the PCA Main Event with a win in the €1,000 Randomized Bounty side event in Deauville and a runner-up finish in the EPT Deauville High Roller event worth €152,000 and 161 POY points.  Visser’s debut in the ranks at fourth place behind John Dibella displaces Faraz Jaka to fifth and knocks Phil Ivey out of the top five.

Eric Sfez defeated Visser heads-up to win the High Roller event in Deauville.  He debuts at 14th this week on the strength of that win as well as an in the moeny finish in a €1,500 Deauville side event.  The EPT Deauville Main Event winner Vadzim Kursevich and EPT Deauville Main Event runner-up Paul Guichard also broke the top twenty, coming in at seventh and nineteenth respectively.

The entree of four new players in the ranks pushed out the likes of David Shallow, Mike Krstanoski, and Mike Telker.  Brock Parker only broke the top twenty last week after a strong performance at the Borgata Winter Poker Open, but he is already just outside of the top 20, sitting in 21st place.

Next week, results from the LA Poker Classic, the Lucky Hearts Poker Open in Florida, and the latest events on the WSOPC circuit will once again shake things up but, so far, no players in the top five have been too active, so the big shuffling in the ranks will likely be confined to the bottom half of the ranks.

Here are the latest top twenty in the 2012 BLUFF Player of the Year race:

1. (+1) Jonathan Duhamel – 561.60
2. (-1) Oliver Speidel- 529.45
3. (-) John Dibella – 450.75
4. (NR) Ruben Visser – 406.60
5. (-1) Faraz Jaka – 327.50
6. (-1) Phil Ivey – 308.65
7. (NR) Vadzim Kursevich – 306.00
8. (-2) Kyle Julius – 299.25
9. (-2) Leonid Bilokur – 288.00
10. (-2) Ken Wong – 273.70
11. (-2) Shawn Buchanan- 268.88
12. (-2) Andrew Chen- 254.17
13. (-2) Viktor Blom – 250.00
14. (NR) Eric Sfez – 248.00
15. (-3) Joshua Mancuso – 243.80
16. (-3) Daniel Shiff – 226.63
17. (-3) John Dolan – 224.00
18. (-) Bruno Lopes – 219.30
19. (NR) Paul Guichard – 214.20
20. (-5) Abraham Araya – 209.00

Dropped from ranks: Brock Parker, Mike Telker, Mike Krstanoski, David Shallow

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