Winners Declared for 14th European Poker Awards

The European Poker Awards have been honoring leaders in the European poker industry for more than a decade. The 14th European Poker Awards were held on Wednesday at Portomaso Marina Hilton Hotel in Malta and the expert jury faced a tough challenge, especially after a marquee year on the European poker scene.

The nominees were determined by a panel of players, industry insiders and poker media members, and the winners were chosen by a jury vote among experts. The decisions and results for Player of the Year and Female Player of the Year were based on GPI’s European Player of the Year Leaderboard scores.

Featured awards included those for best venues, best online poker initiative, best poker events, best poker innovations, media, and many others.

Germany’s Ole Schemion and Live Boeree took home awards for male and female player of the year, which was determined by the Global Poker Index’s exclusive scoring formula.

2014 World Series of Poker champ Martin Jacobson took home the award for the best tournament performance. I assume that it wasn’t easy to decide which player among the nominees deserved that award the most due to the excellent performance of all the players nominated. David Kitai, for his brilliant play in WSOP #15, Dominik Panka, for his PCA Main Event performance, and Victoria Coren- Mitchell for EPT San Remo were also nominated for the title.

One of the UK's most promising poker players, Jack Salter, walked away with the title of Breakout Player of the Year, topping Panka, George Danzer and OliverPrice. However, Danzer didn't walk away empty-handed, as he earned the title of Best Poker Ambassador in 2014.

The award for the Event of the Year in buy-ins over $2,000 went to the EPT Vienna Main Event, while Poker Innovation of the Year was awarded to Unibet for launching its own gaming platform. The Event of the Year award in the category of buy-ins below $2,000 went to the Battle of Malta.

The poker community is well known for raising funds for charitable organizations so the title of Charitable Initiative of the Year was awarded to REG charity, a community of poker players devoted to making a positive impact.

The award for Industry Person of the Year was handed to Leon Tsoukernik, the owner and CEO of King’s Casino, while the Poker Media Content of the Year title went to Victor Saumont for his documentary, 'Nosebleed.'