Chris Moorman to Receive PocketFives Legacy Award at Global Poker Awards; Final 4 Poker Personality of the Year Nominees Revealed

To give recognition to those who work tirelessly in the field of poker, the Global Poker Index (GPI) on March 18 announced the nominations for the first edition of the Global Poker Awards (GPA). With Poker Central and its popular streaming platform, PokerGO, as the award festivals broadcasting partner, GPA will give away awards in 13 different categories, and the entire ceremony will be aired on April 5.

After the announcement of the nominees of the 13 categories, the latest update by GPI revealed that 888Poker Ambassador and one of the greatest online poker players, Chris Moorman has been awarded the PocketFives Legacy Award.

Moreover, the final four nominees for Poker Personality of the Year has also been disclosed and include Jonathan Little, Brad Owen, Johnnie Moreno, and Lex Veldhuis. This award is a part of the People’s Choice Award section, and the nominee who gets the highest number of public votes by April 3 will ultimately win the award.

Chris Moorman Receives PocketFives Legacy Award

Online poker superstar Chris Moorman is a legend on the virtual felts and is being honored for the same by the GPA. On Friday, April 5, Moorman will receive the PocketFives Legacy Award for his long-list of incredible achievements in online poker.

PocketFives President & Editor in Chief, Lance Bradley explained why Moorman was the ideal choice for the award, “Chris’ success in the online poker world is nearly unmatched. When it came time to pick which player to recognize this year, there was never really any debate. We’re thrilled to be able to celebrate one of the most well-respected members of our community on such an important night.”

In fact, between 2008 to 2011, Moorman topped the PocketFives rankings a record 13 times and has even held on to the pole position for a total of 24 weeks. He is also the all-time leader in PocketFives Triple Crowns and arguably most impressively, Moorman’s $15,851,900 in online earnings make him the all-time leader in online tournament earnings. He is the only player in online poker history with career winnings over $10 million.

However, his exploits are not limited to the virtual sphere only, as he has made quite a name for himself on the live felts as well. In 2014, he won the World Poker Tour LA Poker Classic Main Event for $1,015,460. He followed that up with a World Series of Poker bracelet win in 2017. His total live earnings stand tall at $ 5,681,429.

On becoming a recipient of the PocketFives Legacy Award, Moorman said, “It’s a great honour to receive this award. Without PocketFives, I’m not sure I would’ve had the same drive for success. When I discovered the site 10 years ago it motivated me to put in the volume and try to be the best I could be during my early years as a tournament player.”

Moorman is the third player to receive the PocketFives Legacy Award. In 2017, Cliff ‘JohnnyBax’ Josephy received the first PocketFives Legacy Award at the American Poker Awards. Ari Engel was the recipient of this award in 2018.

Final 4 Nominees For the Poker Personality of the Year Award Revealed

There has been some discontent regarding the nominations in many of the 13 categories. The glaring lack of poker professionals and even Indian poker players has been a sore topic among many who have been criticizing the upcoming awards show for only catering to the poker biggies.

Amid this criticism, GPA announced the names of the four finalists for the Poker Personality of the Year – Jonathan Little, Brad Owen, Johnnie Moreno, and Lex Veldhuis – on March 29 via Twitter.

?? Thank you all who took the effort to nominate their Poker Personality of the Year for the People’s Choice Award.
Here are your Final Four:
? @JonathanLittle
? @JohnnieVibes
? @TheBradOwen
? @RaSZi
? Final Four voting: https://t.co/RYMFXISCuL #GlobalPokerAwards pic.twitter.com/He9ty5TzXm

— Global Poker Index (@gpi) March 29, 2019

Being a part of the People’s Choice Award category, the poker fraternity and the world audience at large will get an opportunity to influence the outcome of this award. Nominations for the award were collected till last Thursday, i.e., March 28, and once the votes were counted, these four stood out with the highest number of votes.

The votes of the first-phase were carried over to the final four voting phase and will close on April 3 at 11 p.m. PT.

Meet the Nominees

Jonathan Little

A prolific poker strategy producer, Jonathan Little’s claim to fame is that he is a two-time World Poker Tour (WPT) champion.

He has won both the World Poker Tour’s Season VI Mirage Poker Showdown and the Season VII Foxwoods World Poker Finals, resulting in him also claiming the WPT Season VI Player of the Year award. With over $7 Million in live tournament cashes, Little is a strong contender for the award.

Brad Owen

A hardworking cash game player, Brad Owen is a poker vlogger who recently celebrated surpassing the 100K-subscriber mark on You-Tube and Owen announced the same on Twitter.

Two and a half years, lots of all nighters working on videos, and one cat later… I’m in the 100k sub club! Thanks for sticking around through the good and bad decisions. pic.twitter.com/1RLh1FNM9U

— Brad Owen (@TheBradOwen) March 31, 2019

Given that his poker vlogging career is relatively nascent, this achievement is quite noteworthy. Though, he did not find a place in the Poker Vlogger of the Year nomination list, the Poker Personality nomination more than makes up for it.

Johnnie Moreno

Yet another poker vlogger who was recently in the news for successfully completing the 30-Day #EmbraceTheGrind Challenge, Moreno is a mid-stakes cash game player.

Moreno’s YouTube channel – JohnnieVibes – is quite popular among the poker community and has over 27K subscribers. Although he too missed out on the Vlogger of the Year category, this seems to have got his fans working to make sure he made it in this category.

This is insane to me. I just make videos about my life and the lessons I learn along the way. The fact that it’s a fan nomination is what means the most to me. Thank you for including me in the finalists. https://t.co/eWzdQjPXcW

— Johnnie Vibes (@JohnnieVibes) March 29, 2019

Lex Veldhuis

Possibly one of the more famous names on this list beside Little, Lex Veldhuis needs no introduction.

Veldhuis has been on a poker high of late. Not only was his namesake inaugural Lex Live Spring Festival successfully concluded on March 31, but the Twitch streamer has been nominated in three different categories at the GPA including the Streamer of the Year and Broadcaster of the Year. He was nominated for the latter after he recently began commentating at major live-streamed poker events. With the numerous feats he has accomplished in the past year, he is undoubtedly a frontrunner to win the award.