Foxen Poised for GPI Player of the Year Title After WPT Five Diamond Victory
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Alex Foxen might be inching closer to achieving something that has never been achieved before in the history of poker after winning the Season XVIII WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $1,694,995.
The American finished second in the same event back in 2017, and knew he would need to match that result to move into the lead in the 2019 Global Poker Index Player of the Year race. Foxen went one better.
He is now set to vault from tenth to first place in the POY standings and stands on the verge of winning back-to-back POY titles, cementing his status as one of the best poker players on the planet.
WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Foxen | $1,694,995 |
| 2 | Toby Joyce | $1,120,040 |
| 3 | Seth Davies | $827,285 |
| 4 | Peter Neff | $617,480 |
| 5 | Danny Park | $465,780 |
| 6 | Jonathan Jaffe | $355,125 |
"It Feels Amazing!"
“It’s surreal – it’s kind of hard to put into words,” he told WPT.com. “It feels amazing. The last time I got to this spot I was a little bit disappointed in how I played heads-up. It’s just incredible to get the opportunity again and be fortunate enough to pull out the win.”
It was a final table featuring two former World Poker Tour Champions Club members in the shape of Jonathan Jaffe and Seth Davies, but Foxen defeated them all, eventually seeing off Toby Joyce heads-up to take down the title and with it free entry into the season-ending $15,000 WPT Tournament of Champions. After the tournament, Foxen was full of praise for his heads-up opponent.
“Toby’s an awesome player,” Foxen said. “I hadn’t played that much with him prior to this tournament, but he plays really well. I was impressed by him. Everybody at the final table played great all the way down the stretch. It was a tough road to this one. Toby in particular really impressed me. He’s destined for a lot more of these I’d imagine.”
Final Table Action
According to updates from the event, Foxen started the day second in chips behind Danny Park, but a huge pot between the two would see Foxen go runner-runner to make a flush to move into the chip lead.
Former WPT champion Jonathan Jaffe was eliminated in sixth, losing a flip to Foxen with nines against king-queen. It was the inverse for Danny Park, whose tens failed to hold against Toby Joyce, who spiked a queen on the river with ace-queen.
Foxen sat with 21 million of the 41 million in play four-handed, but it was Seth Davies who eliminated Peter Neff in fourth place.
However, the pressure from Foxen was unrelenting, and he finished off Davies himself, before continuing his domination with the quick heads-up elimination of Joyce to secure victory at the PokerGo Studio at the ARIA Resort & Casino.
Notable Players to Cash
Other players to cash in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic included Eric Afriat (9th - $168,005), Darren Elias (14th - $107,840), Ali Imsirovic (16th - $87,885), Chino Rheem (22nd - $60,435), Andrey Pateychuk (25th - $51,005), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (27th - $51,005), Cary Katz (44th - $37,670), Jesse Sylvia (51st - $32,970), Daniel Negreanu (62nd - $29,220), Kitty Kuo (67th - $26,220), Cliff Josephy (74th - $23,830), Jack Salter (94th - $20,465), David Williams (124th - $18,530) and Justin Bonomo (130th - $18,530).
Player of the Year Race
It has been a nail-biting finish to the 2019 Global Poker Index Player of the Year race, with Bryn Kenney, Sean Winter, Kahle Burns and Stephen Chidwick all battling it out. Foxen sat in tenth, and once the potential POY points were calculated, he knew that second place would see him soar all the way to the top.
Global Poker Index President Eric Danis took to Twitter to stress that the GPI would be double-checking all results, to avoid any mistakes, and that all GPI Players of the Year will be announced on Wednesday, January 1st.
@gpi @WAFoxen We will officially announce all @gpi Players of the Year on Wednesday, January 1st ... we will be spe… https://t.co/FuzUWwWQrN
— Eric Danis (@EricDanisPoker)
Former GPI Players of the Year
| Year | Player |
|---|---|
| 2012 | Dan Smith |
| 2013 | Ole Schemion |
| 2014 | Daniel Colman |
| 2015 | Byron Kaverman |
| 2016 | David Peters |
| 2017 | Adrian Mateos |
| 2018 | Alex Foxen |
Images courtesy of the WPT
Based in the United Kingdom, Will started working for PokerNews as a freelance live reporter in 2015 and joined the full-time staff in 2019. He graduated from the University of Kent in 2017 with a B.A. in German. He also holds an NCTJ Diploma in Sports Journalism.
