Punsri, Foxen, Lakhdari win big
The Global Poker Index (GPI) has just released its complete list of winners for 2025, and at the top of the bill, Thailand’s Punnat Punsri is the Player of the Year. Thanks to a late December third-place finish in the World Poker Tour $25,000 High Roller at the Wynn Las Vegas, he narrowly pipped last year’s GPI PoY runner-up Jesse Lonis.
first Asian player to win the GPI PoY honors
Punsri enjoyed a barnstorming year, earning almost $11m on the live circuit as he booked huge results at the Triton Poker Series, the World Series of Poker, EPT Barcelona, and APPT Taiwan. In doing so, he became the first Asian player to win the GPI PoY honors. He also retains his crown as Thailand’s National Player of the Year, a title he has held since 2021.
For the fifth time in the last eight years, the GPI Female PoY award goes to Kristen Foxen, who enjoyed a comfortable margin of victory over last year’s winner Cherish Andrews. Foxen also won her second Canadian National PoY title and is #1 on the Women’s All-Time Money List, having now accumulated more live tournament winnings than Vanessa Selbst.
In the Mid-Major PoY category, awarded to the player who had the most success in buy-ins under $2,500, the 2025 winner is Omar Lakhdari, who nudged out Evan Sandberg. With a whopping nine podium finishes, including a WSOP Circuit Main Event victory and WPT Prime title, Lakhdari also took down the Algeria National PoY for the eighth time and third time in a row.
GPI National Players of the Year
The threshold for eligibility in the National PoY races is 1,000 GPI points and in 2025, players from 93 countries qualified. Notable winners included Lonis (USA), Nacho Barbero (Argentina), Christian Roberts (Venezuela), Pedro Padilha (Brazil), Thomas Szwarcberg (Mexico), Fabrizio Gonzales (Uruguay), Nick Yunis (Chile), Carlos Serrano (Colombia), Michael Acevedo (Costa Rica), and Gerardo Rodriguez (Peru).
On the other side of the pond, European winners include Stephen Chidwick (UK), Daniel Rezaei (Austria), Mikita Bodyakovsky (Belarus), Thomas Boivin (Belgium), Alex Reard (France), Christoph Vogelsang (Germany), Joao Vieira (Portugal), Baris Topuz (Turkey), Viktor Blom (Sweden), Toby Joyce (Ireland), Tobias Peters (Netherlands), Lautaro Cabrerizo (Spain), Aleksejs Ponakovs (Latvia), Matas Cimbolas (Lithuania), Matthew Micallef (Malta), Dinesh Alt (Switzerland), Adrian State (Romania), Blaz Zerjab (Slovenia), Igor Yaroshevskyy (Ukraine), Fahredin Mustafov (Bulgaria), Yiannis Liperis (Cyprus), Pavel Plesuv (Moldova), Giorgiy Skhuluhiya (Georgia), and Alexandros Theologis (Greece).
In the rest of the world, winners included Danny Tang (Hong Kong), Quan Zhou (China), Kahle Burns (Australia), Artur Martirosyan (Russia), Meng Ling Lin (Taiwan), Timur Makhamedaminov (Uzbekistan), Gilbert Tin Fook (Mauritius), Bradley Moore (South Africa), Yohwan Lim (South Korea), Maher Achour (Tunisia), and Nguyen Le (Vietnam). Chidwick won his national prize for the tenth time, Yunis for a ninth straight time, while Barbero, Vieira, Yaroshevskyy, and Liperis all clocked their eighth victories. Cimbolas notched his seventh; Bodyakovsky, Plesuv and Tang, their sixth.
No Global Poker Awards
Unfortunately, there will be no Global Poker Awards in 2026, following an announcement made by GPI/The Hendon Mob Database President Eric Danis in mid-November.
we have other projects that have taken priority over the awards”
“We are a very small team and the awards process as a whole takes two members of our team out of the day-to-day operations for two months every year…We’re certainly going to miss putting on a great show, but we have other projects that have taken priority over the awards.”
A few other entities have hinted at the possibility of doing awards to honor the industry figures, content creators, breakout players, and others. Time will tell if the best and brightest of 2025 will be celebrated at “The Polkies,” “The InGrammies,” or “The Orgies.” In the meantime, it is worth acknowledging the tremendous and thankless work done by Danis and his team over the years. It is also worth recognizing their continued contribution with these GPI awards.
- SCCG Management. The Gambling Industry’s Global Connector. Access Here.
- Source: https://www.vegasslotsonline.com/news/2026/01/07/punnat-punsri-is-2025-player-of-the-year-as-global-poker-index-announces-winners/
