The BLUFF Magazine Player of the Year Award, presented in cooperation with the Aria Resorts and Casino, one of the most prestigious annual awards in the poker world, and for last year, 2011, 32-year-old Ukrainian Eugene Katchalov has received that honor.
Named 2011 BLUFF Player of the Year, Eugue Katchalov earned a total of $2,572,726 in poker of the course of the year, bringing his career earnings in live poker to $7,001,893. These figures also bring Katchalov to number 36 on Poker’s All-Time Money List tracking the biggest all-time career earners in poker.
Katchalov’s 2011 started out with a heads-up victory over Daniel Negreanu for $1.5 million in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100k Super High Roller event. Less than two weeks later he finished second at the PCA $10k High-Roller 6-Max event, for an additional $131,920.
Over the course of 2011, Katchalov has finished first place twice, including his first ever WSOP championship in the $1,500 7-Card Stud event. He also made 7 final tables and cashed in 13 events in 2011. Other highlights of the year for Katchalov include a third place finish in the EPT Barcelona Main Event, earning him another $453,812.
Katchalov’s cashes include three EPT main events (one being the season 7 grand final).
Coming in at a close second behind Katchalov for BLUFF’s 2011 Player of the Year was Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who notched up $2,296,620 in winnings this year, including his first ever WSOP win.
Both Grospellier and Katchalov are Team Poker Stars Pro players.