Yorky Pud

The Aviation Club de France in the heart of Paris was the venue for the 11th edition of the European Poker Awards, which took place on Thursday. In total there were nine awards presented thought the category that everyone had their eye on was the European Player of the Year accolade.

The selection committee chose six players who they thought were worthy of the title European Player of the Year, those being Jake Cody, Pius Heinz, Andrey Pateychuk, Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov and Sam Trickett. Any of the six would have been worthy recipients but when the votes were counted up it was Trickett who had captured the judges imaginations and he was revealed as the 2011 European Player of the Year.

Trickett's achievements during 2011 were nothing short of amazing, notching up close to $4,600,000 in live tournament winnings and a rumoured £1,000,000 cash haul in the Big Game in Macau. His huge winning total was helped by him winning the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge, coming second in the $250,000 Super High Roller (again at the Aussie Millions) and taking down the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event. Just these three results alone made Trickett a worthy winner.

The former professional footballer was also nominated for the Best Tournament Performance but that honour was only ever going to one player and that was the aforementioned Heinz for winning the World Series of Poker Main Event. It is difficult to vote against someone who has navigated their way through a field of 6,865 players!

Two of Trickett's fellow Player of the Year nominees also scooped awards. Grospellier bagged himself the Rob Gardner Memorial Award for the Poker Peronality of the Year whilst Pateychuk, who came 15th in the WSOP Main Event before winning the Main Events of EPT San Remo and WPT Prague was crowned the Rookie of the Year.

Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies helped himself to the Internet Player of the Year whilst the delectable Natalia Nikitina of Russia picked up the Europe's Leading Lady award. The WSOPE in Cannes won the Best European Event of the year whilst bwinparty's Warren Lush is now the reigning Poker Staff Person of the year. And last, but most certainly not least was the Lifetime Achievement award. This was handed to the legendary Jesse May and there is not a single person in the poker industry who would argue against the judges decision to award the Voice of Poker the prestigious award.

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