Dzmitry Urbanovich Extends POY Lead, Steve O’Dwyer Jumps to 2nd

Steve O’Dwyer is the closest to catching current leader Dzmitry Urbanovich in the 2015 BLUFF Player of the Year race, but even has a long ways to go. (Photo c/o Rene Velli / PokerStars Blog)

Dzmitry Urbanovich recaptured the lead one week ago, and he only added distance between himself and the rest of the pack this week with a second final table at the EPT Grand Final. A third place finish in the €10,000 Six Handed Turbo event earned Urbanovich a cool 100 BLUFF POY points, but there’s a catch; with 12 qualifying cashes already in 2015, only the top 10 results count – meaning any future results will bump another cash from consideration.

He’ll have plenty of time to think about that as he sits at home during the summer, due to Urbanovich being just 19 years old, as most of the poker world descends on Las Vegas. They’ll all have to catch up to him first, though, and Steve O’Dwyer seems as likely a candidate as any to try. O’Dwyer jumped three spots this week after a third place finish in the €25,000 High Roller at the EPT Grand Final, worth over $600,000 and 141 POY points.

Anthony Zinno fell one spot this week, though it was through little fault of his own. He made a final table of his own, finishing ninth in a €2,200 No Limit Hold’em side event. Scott Seiver cracked the top five after finishing one spot behind Urbanovich in the €10,000 Turbo side event in Monte Carlo.

The biggest move this week came from Atanas Kavrakov, who shot up eight spots this week after a pair of final tables. Kavrakov finished sixth in a €1,000 side event in Monte Carlo, and then headed to WPT Amsterdam where he finished fifth in the High Roller.

Mustapha Kanit added a 26th place finish in the EPT Grand Final Main Event to his €50,000 Super High Roller win to tack some more POY points onto his score and move up a spot. Stephen Chidwick’s 21st place finish in that Main Event bumped him up three spots in the POY standings, to 13th.

Three of the last five players in the top 20 of the POY standings are fresh faces. Nick Pupillo won the last HPT event before they take their summer break, taking down the East Chicago Main Event for $120,537 and 143 POY points. Englishman Charlie Carrel won the €25,000 EPT Grand Final High Roller for $1.26 million and enough POY points to get to 17th in this race. Connor Drinan finished second in the €10,000 Six Handed Turbo event in Monte Carlo, just ahead of Urbanovich and Seiver, and he comes in at 19th.

2015 BLUFF Player of the Year Standings (as of May 13)

1. Dzmitry Urbanovich – 888.53 (-)
2. Steve O’Dwyer – 717.56 (+3)
3. Anthony Zinno – 665.70 (-1)
4. Nick Petrangelo – 611.09 (-1)
5. Scott Seiver – 606.76 (+1)
6. Taylor Paur – 524.14 (-1)
7. Atanas Kavrakov – 517.99 (+8)
8. Joe Kuether – 503.68 (-1)
9. Ivan Luca – 495.25 (-)
10. Erik Seidel – 494.86 (-2)
11. Tom Marchese – 470.00 (-1)
12. Mustapha Kanit – 457.96 (+1)
13. Stephen Chidwick – 447.88 (+3)
14. Asher Conniff – 444.98 (-2)
15. Dan Heimiller – 441.37 (-4)
16. Nick Pupillo – 432.61 (NR)
17. Charlie Carrel – 431.15 (NR)
18. Jose Montes – 427.25 (-4)
19. Connor Drinan – 421.50 (NR)
20. Jean Montury – 421.32 (-2)

Dropped from Rankings: Yuguang Li (17th), Bryn Kenney (19th), Andreas Sammuelsson (20th)

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Tim Fiorvanti

Tim Fiorvanti graduated from St. John's University with a B.S. in Journalism in 2008. After several years in the industry, he started working for BLUFF in the summer of 2010. He worked his way up at BLUFF and joined full time as a Senior Writer in April of 2012. Fiorvanti now serves as the Managing Editor of BLUFF. He's a tortured Mets and Jets fan, along with several other frustrating allegiances, but he's also a two-time defending BLUFF Fantasy Football Champion.

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