GPI Release Nominees For 2016 American Poker Awards

The Global Poker Index (GPI) which is owned by Mediarex Enterprises has taken significant steps over the last couple of years under the guidance of its CEO Alex Dreyfus to change the image of poker from tainted as a gamblers game to one that is known as a sport. Dreyfus launched a number of initiatives to sportify poker in the United States and one of those was launching the GPI American Poker Awards for the first time in 2015.

The GPI is now getting ready to launch the second edition of the American Poker Awards at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills on the 26th of February 2016. The award ceremony will be held in the evening and the GPI will once again organize a special American Poker Conference at the same venue in the morning.

The event will once again have the players’ panel so that players views and concerns can be represented at the event.

Some of the topics that will be discussed during the conference include eSports, Poker Media and women in Poker. Some of the leading poker brands and top executives in the industry are expected to be a part of this conference.

Highlights from American Poker Awards 2015 provided by pokernewsdotcom

The GPI has also confirmed that the 2016 edition of the American Poker Awards will feature eleven categories and have released the list of nominees for each category. Some of the categories being featured at the awards include tournament performance of the year; moment of the year; breakout performance of the year; event of the year where the buy-in is below $2,000, event of the year where the buy-in is above $2000 and industry person of the year.

The nominees for Industry person of the year include Jack Effel, WSOP Vice President and Tournament Director; Matt Savage, TDA Founder, WPT Executive Director; William Mason, Seminole Hard Rock Director of Poker and John Pappas, Poker Players Alliance Executive Director.

The nominees for breakout performance of the year include Joshua Beckley, Kelly Minkin, Asher Conniff and Cate Hall. The nominees for tournament performance of the year include Jonathan Duhamel, WSOP One Drop High Roller; Joseph McKeehen, WSOP Main Event; Mike Gorodinsky, WSOP Poker Players’ Championship and Anthony Zinno, WPT L.A. Poker Classic.

There is also an award for charitable initiative of the year and the nominees for that award are the Chad Brown Memorial Tournament (Maria Ho, Vanessa Rousso); WSOP One Drop High Roller / Litte One for One Drop; Charity Series of Poker (Matthew Stout) and Tiger’s Poker Night (hosted by Tiger Woods, WPT Foundation).