by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Mar 9, 2012 | Updated on Mar 9, 2012ESPN calls themselves, “the world-wide leader in sports” and that would not be true if poker was not thrown in there somewhere. Poker is prominent on ESPN and every month they release who, in their opinion, are the top 10 players in the world right now. Unlike most ranking systems, ESPN takes into consideration more than just live play, but because live play is much more public than anything else, most of the consideration has to be done through it.ESPN has a staff of 10 individuals from different ends of the poker spectrum that help decide who should stay in the top 10 and who will have to wait at least another month. The first four involved in comprising the top 10 all come from ESPN and go by the names of Gary Wise, Bernard Lee, Andrew Feldman, and Nahuel Ponce. Bluff Magazine has a two person presence in the form of Jessica Welman as well as Lance Bradley. PokerNews and PocketFives both have their say through Elaine Chaivarlis, Don Peters, Dan Cypra, and Court Harrington who actually is a part of PokerRoad.The top 10 did not change much this month as 90% of the players who started in the top 10 also finished there. Vanessa Selbst is the only player who managed to break her way into the top 10 and took that spot from Jake Cody. Selbst was able to stake her claim to the number 9 spot thanks to an impressive run in the LAPC that saw her walk away with over $170,000 over just a few events.Jonathan Duhamel sat in 8th originally but now moved up to the fifth spot on the list. He jumped up thanks to a couple final table appearances at the LAPC as well as the EPT’s stop in Deauville. And as if you did not expect to see these two faces at the top of the list, Jason Mercier is first and Erick Seidel sits second. Seidel seems to be slipping ever so slightly as he has not made much noise in the latter part of 2011 and no noise at all in the early going of this year. The Full Top 10 is listed below.
- Jason Mercier
- Erik Seidel
- Phil Ivey
- Eugene Katchalov
- Jonathan Duhamel
- Shawn Buchanan
- Chris Moorman
- Sam Trickett
- Vanessa Selbst
- Bertrand Grospellier
