Team partypoker’s Kristen Bicknell was crowned the 2017 Female Poker Player of the Year by the Global Poker Index this week so the partypoker blog thought we would look back at Bicknell’s tremendous year at the tables.
Bicknell not only finished at the top of the 2017 Female Player of the Year standings, she did so by an impressive 431 points. The Global Poker Index (GPI) awards points to players who reach the money places in live poker tournaments around the world. The formula used to award the points is based on field size, buy-in and finishing position.
Not all cashes are taken into consideration, which is good because Bicknell cashed in no fewer than 28 separate tournaments during 2017. Had all cashes been counted, Bicknell would no doubt have ran away with the title much more than she actually did.
Like many of poker’s elite players, Bicknell started the year competing at the Aussie Millions in Melbourne where she cashed three times. She then moved onto the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic where she put a deep run together in the C$2,500 side event, finishing 15th for $17,975 before finishing seventh in the C$5,000 Main Event to bag C$71,820.
From Canada, Bicknell travelled to Panama and added a further five cashes to her name, including a first-place finish in a $1,100 Win the Button event that netted our star $3,880. Bicknell then finished in the money of the £5,300 partypoker MILLIONS at Dusk Till Dawn for an additional £17,500.
Bicknell cashes seven times at the WSOP
Next up was the 2017 World Series of Poker where Bicknell navigated her way to seven cashes. The highlight of her series was a final table appearance in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Handed Championship event, a tournament that attracts some of the world’s best players. Bicknell showed she can more than hold her own in elite company and eventually finished sixth for a $96,823 score.
Another cash in a Las Vegas tournament was followed by a brace of cashes, and final table appearances, at the WSOP International Circuit in Sao Paulo. Our heroine finished fifth in the R$15,000 High Roller and seventh in the R$33,00 Main Event for a combined R$148,000.
Four cashes at the 2017 WSOP Europe at King’s Casino, Rozvadov followed, including an 18th place, from 529 entrants, finish in the €10,300 Main Event for €31,337.
Bicknell then joined hundreds of partypoker qualifiers in Punta Cana for the Caribbean Poker Party. A cash in the $1,100 MILLIONS Open added a Dominican Republic flag to her Hendon Mob profile page.
The biggest result of the year came in early December when Bicknell joined 146 others in the $5,200 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. When the dust settled, Bicknell was the last woman standing and got her hands on $199,840; a small cash in Prague rounded off Bicknell’s year.
In total, Bicknell won $551,906 from live poker tournaments during 2017, beating her total of $457,778 earned in 2016. We can only start to imagine the figures Bicknell will be showing once 2018 has been and gone.
2017 GPI Female Player of the Year Top 10
| Place | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kristen Bicknell | 2,627.75 |
| 2 | Maria Lampropulos | 2,196.75 |
| 3 | Loni Harwood | 2,066.17 |
| 4 | Maria Ho | 2,045.37 |
| 5 | Esther Taylor-Brady | 1,987.27 |
| 6 | Nadya Magnus | 1,983.11 |
| 7 | Cate Hall | 1,882.66 |
| 8 | Wendy Freedman | 1,668.70 |
| 9 | Celina Lin | 1,636.84 |
| 10 | Anna Antimony | 1,510.38 |
Bicknell’s closest rival in the player of the year standings was Argentina’s Maria Lampropulos, who you may recall took down the partypoker MILLIONS at Dusk Till Dawn for a massive £1 million score.
Also in the top 10 were the likes of Loni Harwood, Maria Ho, Cate Hall and Celina Lin. Unlike Bicknell, who is ranked 58th in the world regardless of gender, none of the chasing pack are ranked in the GPI Top 100.
A shout out to another partypoker Ladies member Natalia Breviglieri who finished 18th in the female player of the year standings. Breviglieri cashed for $101,163 during 2017, a marked improvement on the $50,808 she won in 2016.
The future is bright for these partypoker Ladies, that is for certain.
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