As 2009 comes to a close we’re seeing some frantic action at the tables to finish the year. A lot of players have the last few weeks off of work or school, freeing up schedules to hit or surpass some of the milestones they set out to accomplish this year. That means that the tables have had plenty of action in December so far and we’re going to check in to see who is closing the year out in style at the various stakes levels.

25nl Players

zodion, PokerStars – $2,777 in 106,839 hands (5.2BB/100)
sharingaan, PokerStars – $1,811 in 100,177 hands (3.62BB/100)
hangchiong, PokerStars – $1,637 in 62,093 hands (5.3BB/100)

Don’t tell these micro-stakes grinders that winning some decent coin for the holidays is impossible. Putting in a ton of hands, the top two earners on the list are also winning at tremendous rates. Either they are carving out one last month of great profits or building their bankrolls to hit up the next level of play at 50nl. Either way these three are impressively crushing their level.

50nl Players

MrBriggs99, PokerStars – $4,097 in 15,629 hands (26.2BB/100)
atticus281, PokerStars – $3,826 in 40,162 hands (9.5BB/100)
blonde_goddess, Full Tilt Poker – $3,578 in 65,915 hands (5.4BB/100)

MrBriggs99 might be the hottest guy playing Heads Up right now winning at a sick win-rate rarely seen. Atticus281 on the other hand is exclusively a 6max player and has been crushing the games so far in December for a huge amount of money taken in given the stakes he’s playing. The final player, hailing from The Netherlands, plays both 6max and heads up and also has been winning at a great win-rate. Will we see any of these players finally make the jump from the micros to the small stakes games? It certainly looks like they could handle it if they tried.

100nl Players

akawild, Full Tilt Poker – $8,951 in 29,886 hands (15BB/100)
g0_all_in, PokerStars – $7,098 in 147,498 hands (2.4BB/100)
aurora446, Full Tilt Poker – $7,077 in 71,100 hands (5BB/100)
Milwaukee2, PokerStars – $6,999 in 69,653 hands (5BB/100)

The top player in this list, “akawild”, is just destroying the games he is playing in as a heads up specialist on Full Tilt Poker. For the first time we see a full ring player make the list in “g0_all_in” at PokerStars. Although he hasn’t won at a huge rate he has put in a ton of hands and shown he’s a true grinder. The final two players on the list play a lot of 6max and “Milwaukee2″ was one of the players mentioned in the hunt for the Small Stakes 2009 Player of the Year. There’s definitely a close gap between players in 2nd through 4th place on this list so it’ll be interesting to see where it all ends up when the year is done.

200nl Players

tweelingen, Full Tilt Poker – $17,101 in 70,718 hands (6BB/100)
SHATAMANGA, Full Tilt Poker – $12,555 in 12,681 hands (24.7BB/100
tomasq, PokerStars – $12,553 in 115,754 hands (2.7BB/100)
timk0123, PokerStars – $12,199 in 106,283 hands (2.9BB/100)

Each one of these names has a five-figure month in the bag and assuming they won’t hit a real rough patch will all shape up to have really nice Decembers. The top player on the list is “tweelingen” who plays 200nl 6max on Full Tilt Poker and has a few +$1,500 sessions in the books already. To say the comments are less than complementary for “SHATAMANGA” would be an understatement, but nevertheless, this 6max player continues to book some amazing sessions in the last week to catapult him into the top winners list for this month. Our final two players are both from PokerStars, with “tomasq” playing full ring games and “timk0123″ focusing on 6max play. It looks like this might be tweelingen’s race to lose with the other three fighting to see who’ll finish in 2nd. But in poker you never know, one bad run and one of these guys could just be fighting to stay in the positive.

400nl Players

deanosupremo, PokerStars – $21,814 in 182,664 hands (1.5BB/100)
GUIGUI_88, Absolute Poker – $20,867 in 36,746 hands (7.1BB/100)
chisness, PokerStars – $19,766 in 228,549 hands (1BB/100)

At the start of the mid-stakes games we see two players from PokerStars that are clearly mega-multi-tabling freaks that have put in tremendous amounts of poker this month in “deanosupremo” and “Chisness” at 400nl. The irony here is that deanosupremo is hitting a huge rough patch this past week and overall has been playing losing poker since we started tracking him. The other PokerStars player, Chisness, hit his stride in the summer and has a sick upwards turn to his graph. Both of these players primarily play 400nl 6max games. The player in the middle comes from Absolute Poker and is, quite frankly, on fire at the tables. This player plays all variety of games but at 400nl seems to primarily sit at the 6max tables while also taking stabs at the 1knl games.

600nl Players

klairic, PokerStars – $28,608 in 50,559 hands (4.7BB/100)
jackked_up, PartyPoker – $22,944 in 33,676 hands (5.7BB/100)
neverbluffing30, Full Tilt Poker – $22,620 in 30,177 hands (6.2BB/100)

Although the number of full ring tables diminishes as you climb the mid-stakes games, Klairic has been winning consistently at them along with sitting at 6max tables. Our first representative from PartyPoker is “jackked_up” who plays both 6max and heads up games. In recent days he’s put in some sessions at $5-$10 and $10-$20 so we might be seeing someone who’s trying to break into the high stakes games now rather than wait for 2010. The final player from 600nl is “NeverBluffing30″ from Full Tilt Poker who is a player that plays both full ring and 6max games and winning at a fantastic win-rate.

1knl ($5-$10) Players

HARDCORY3011, Absolute Poker – $42,81 in 17,248 hands (12BB/100)
ZhugeL1ang, PokerStars – $40,474 in 23,265 hands (8.7BB/100)
FOIL_SHIZZLE, Absolute Poker – $40,365 in 11,440 hands (17.6BB/100)
t_linden1970, PartyPoker – $40,111 in 15,075 hands (13.3BB/100)

It’s a little surprising to see that three of the top four winners at 1knl play at sites other than at PokerStars or Full Tilt. The top player at this level is primarily a heads up player, while the third place player “FOIL_SHIZZLE” primarily plays 6max games. The player representing PokerStars, “ZhugeL1ang” switches back and forth between 6max and full ring games. Finally, our lone PartyPoker representative, “t_linden1970″, is all over the map with the games and stakes he plays in. He’s been seen at heads up, 6max and full ring games at 1knl in addition to playing some very healthy $5-$10 PLO sessions.

Conclusions

It seems we see a lot of good solid players winning at great rates in December and ending the poker year with a healthy chunk of profit in their bankrolls. There’s still plenty of time for a player to step up, play a ton of hands and get hot to launch themselves into the mix to be the top earner for the month. We’ll be standing by at Poker Table Ratings to report all the action.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Articles, Featured Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.