GPI announces 2022 winners: Stephen Song makes history with two titles; Cherish Andrews wins female POY; Punnat Punsri tops APAC Nationals

2022 was an exciting year for live poker with most borders opening and an abundance of festivals filling up everyone’s calendar. With the year now wrapped up, the Global Poker Index (GPI) winners have been announced. In the final stretch, USA’s Stephen Song slid in to win both the Global Player of the Year title and the Mid-Major Player of the Year title. At the GPI Female POY race, Cherish Andrews came out on top. Also announced were all the GPI National winners that included Thailand’s Punnat Punsri as the top scorer for Asia-Pacific. The full list is down below.

Player of the Year GPI & Mid-Major: STEPHEN SONG – 3,543.72 points

American player Stephen Song was not in radar for the Global GPI Player of the Year title but after clinching the $1K World Poker Tour(WPT) Prime Championship in December, he picked up 422.40 points to catapult to the top of the charts and win it. This strong finish came two months after his first victory of the year at The Wynn Fall Classic $2K Progressive Bounty where he earned 239.62 points.

A couple of other large point generating events happened in the summertime. Song nearly locked up his career second World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, finishing runner-up at the $5K 6-Handed No Limit Hold’em event. This generated him 364.84 points. He also earned 340.52 points for placing 4th at the $2,400 Venetian Deepstack Championship NLH.

With most of Song’s points earned in tournaments of buy ins up to $2,500, he also clinched the Mid-Major POY title. In doing so, he became the first player in GPI history to win two titles in a single season.

GPI Female Player of the Year: CHERISH ANDREWS – 2,835.14

Putting a lot of volume on the live felt in 2022, it paid off in the end for Cherish Andrews who cashed in 22 tournaments, closing out very strong at the World Poker Tour World Championship festival to win the GPI Female Player of the Year title. The runaway victory saw Andrews finish 6th at the $3K NLH for 311.27 points, followed it up with runner-up at the $10.1K NLH High Roller for 328.17 points, then shipped the $1K NLH for her maiden live title to add another 325.97 points.

On a side note, Andrews also performed spectacularly online, winning her first ever WSOP.com bracelet at the $1K No Limit Hold’em Championship – Pennsylvania, USA platform. She also nearly won her first WSOPC ring, placing 2nd at the $320 Pot Limit Omaha 6-Max Online.

Asia-Pacific GPI National winners by points

The GPI announcement also named 79 National winners of which 12 were from the Asia-Pacific region. Topping the APAC winner lineup was Thailand’s Punnat Punsri with 3,172.78 points.

It was evident from the start that Punsri was headed for a big year. He opened with back to back Venetian High Roller wins in January then went on to cash at 17 other events to rack up over $4M in winnings. He earned the most points of 417.42 for his victory at the Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event in Cyprus. It also awarded him a career high $2.6 Million.

At the World Series of Poker, Punsri placed 3rd at the $50K 8-Handed High Roller, 2nd at the $1,979 Hall of Fame Bounty event, and 14th at the $1,500 Millionaire Maker for a combined 777.47 points. To ensure the highest points in the APAC region, Punsri won the World Poker Tour Prime Taiwan High Roller for 274.36 points.

Full list of 2022 GPI National winners by country (alphabetical)

(*Minimum 1,000 GPI PoY points required to be recognized as National PoY)