Global Poker Awards 2026: The Comeback at WSOP Paradise, the Fan Vote, and What’s Changed

A year ago, it looked like poker‘s biggest awards night might be gone for good. In November 2025, the Global Poker Index announced there would be no ceremony in 2026, citing how much time the show takes to prepare and produce. Punnat Punsri became the first Asian player to win GPI Player of the Year in January, and there was no stage to collect his trophy on.

Now the awards are back, but in a very different shape. New city, new time of year, and a much shorter list of trophies. Here’s what’s changed, who’s in the running, and how you can have your say.

What’s Different About the 2026 Global Poker Awards?

The short answer: almost everything except the name.

	2025 ceremony	2026 ceremony
Date	February 2025	December 4, 2026
Venue	PokerGO Studio, ARIA Las Vegas	Baha Mar, Bahamas
Held alongside	Standalone event	WSOP Paradise
Number of categories	38	11
Focus	Players, media, content, industry	Mostly players

Why move to the Bahamas in December?

Timing is the obvious advantage. WSOP Paradise runs December 2–17 at Baha Mar, with 20 bracelet events and $120 million in guarantees, including a $25,000 Super Main Event with a $50 million guarantee. On December 4, many of the game’s biggest names will already be on the island, so there’s no need to fly everyone to Las Vegas for a single evening.

It’s a sensible solution to the exact problem that killed last year’s ceremony. Holding the awards inside an existing festival means much of the infrastructure, audience and talent is already there.

What got cut?

Four media- and industry-focused categories are gone: Best Podcast, Best Poker Book, Best Industry Person and Best Media Content. The organizers say the slimmed-down list reflects a renewed focus on player achievements over the past 12 months on the international circuit.

That’s a loss for poker’s media world, which used the ceremony as its main platform for recognition. But for fans, the remaining categories are the ones most people actually care about.

The 11 Award Categories

1. Most Feared Live Tournament Player
2. Most Feared Live Tournament Mixed Games Player
3. Most Feared Cash Game Player
4. Best Table Mate
5. Best Villain
6. Breakout Player
7. Fans’ Choice: Most Entertaining Player
8. Best Live Streamer
9. Best Vlogger
10. Best Final Table Performance
11. GPI Poker ICON

Nominees for most categories haven’t been announced yet. The one category already open is the fan vote.

The Fan Vote: Most Entertaining Player Nominees

This is the only award decided by the public. Voting is open on the official Global Poker Index website until November 3, so you have only a few days.

The ten nominees cover just about every corner of the game’s entertainment world:

• Alan Keating: A fixture of high-stakes live-streamed cash games, famous for playing almost any two cards and getting away with it.
• Daniel “Jungleman” Cates: One of the most unpredictable personalities in poker, both at the table and on social media.
• Daniel Negreanu: Arguably the game’s best-known ambassador, with a huge following for his vlogs and table talk.
• Nik Airball: A loose, big-swinging high-stakes cash player who’s become a live-stream favorite.
• Phil Hellmuth: The “Poker Brat” himself, the all-time WSOP bracelet leader and the sport’s most reliable source of drama.
• Randy “3Coin” Sadler: A popular content creator who has built a following documenting his poker life.
• Will Givens: A rising name among poker content creators, best known for his vlogs.
• Jennifer Tilly: The Oscar-nominated actress and WSOP bracelet winner, beloved for her humor and table presence.
• Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi: Winner of the 2025 WSOP Main Event, and fittingly, he’s also hosting events at this year’s WSOP Paradise.
• Phil Laak: “The Unabomber,” known for his hoodie, his energy and his willingness to try anything for a laugh.

Who are the favorites?

Fan votes tend to reward the players with the biggest online audiences, which on paper favors Negreanu and Hellmuth. But the 2025 winner was Alejandro Lococo, which shows the result isn’t always the obvious one.

Keep an eye on the live-stream crowd. Keating and Nik Airball have massive followings from high-stakes cash streams, and that audience is very online and very motivated. Mizrachi also has momentum after the best year of his career.

How to vote: Go to the Global Poker Index website, find the Most Entertaining Player ballot and pick your favorite before the November 3 deadline. Check the site for the exact closing time.

Who Won These Categories Last Time?

For context, here’s who won the surviving categories at the February 2025 ceremony:

• Most Entertaining Player (fan vote): Alejandro Lococo
• Breakout Player: Rania Nasreddine (USA)
• Best Live Streamer: Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg
• Best Vlogger: Brad Owen (his third win in the category)
• Best Final Table Performance: Barny Boatman, for his EPT Paris win

Brad Owen is the name to watch in the vlogging category. A fourth win would cement his place as the defining poker vlogger of his era.

What About Player of the Year?

Notice something missing? GPI Player of the Year isn’t one of the 11 categories. That’s because the GPI awards its rankings-based titles separately, based purely on results.

The 2025 titles were confirmed on January 7, 2026:

• Player of the Year: Punnat Punsri (Thailand), with 4,458.06 points. He edged Jesse Lonis by just 7.41 points, one of the tightest finishes in the award’s history, and became the first player from Asia to win it.
• Female Player of the Year: Kristen Foxen, her fifth title in eight years, a record.
• Mid-Major Player of the Year: Omar Lakhdari (Algeria)
• UK National Player of the Year: Stephen Chidwick, for the tenth time

With no ceremony this year, those winners never got their moment on stage. It’s not yet clear whether the December show will recognize them.

Why the Global Poker Awards Matter

If you’re newer to the game, you might wonder why an awards show matters in a sport where results are measured in chips and cash.

The answer is that tournament results only tell part of the story. Poker is also an entertainment product. It grows when fans connect with personalities like Tilly, Laak or Keating, and when creators like Brad Owen and Spraggy bring the game to millions of people who’ve never set foot in a casino.

The Global Poker Awards are one of the few places where that side of poker gets recognized. “Most Feared” categories reflect how other pros rate each other, which is often more revealing than any ranking table. And the Breakout Player award has a history of spotting the stars of the next few years before everyone else does.

Our Take

A smaller ceremony is better than no ceremony. Moving to WSOP Paradise is smart: it solves the logistics problem, puts the awards in front of a ready-made audience and gives the show a glamorous backdrop.

The trade-off is that poker media and industry contributors lose their main platform for recognition. Whether the organizers bring those categories back next year will tell us whether this is a temporary trim or a permanent change in direction.

For now, the most useful thing you can do is cast your fan vote before November 3. It’s the one part of the night where poker fans get a direct say.

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