In the final week of 2009, Steve gboro780Gross (pictured at right) was declared the winner of the CardPlayer Online Player of the Year award. He edged out fellow PocketFives.com member David Doc SandsSands and captured winnings in excess of $1.2 million. Gross sits at number five worldwide in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and has earned the respect of his peers, gaining the top Pro Poll tally in the business. PocketFives.com sat down with Gross to recap his run.

Gross’ 10,188 points on the CardPlayer Online Player of the Year leaderboard were the largest ever recorded in the accolade’s three-year history. In the final PocketFives.com Rankings release of February 2009, Gross had ascended from number three worldwide to the top of the list, holding the best PLB and Pro Poll scores on the leaderboard. He stayed at or near the top for the duration of 2009, landing in fifth as the final calculation of the calendar year was handed down.
In February 2009, Gross took down a $322 No Limit Hold’em tournament during the 11th Full Tilt Online Poker Series(FTOPS) for $275,000, defeating Joe bustyou79Chase heads-up. He told PocketFives.com what his proudest moment of 2009 was: “Probably the FTOPS win just because it was double any other cash I had and it was a really long grind to close it out. I also enjoyed getting deep in the $3,000 Mixed Hold’em event during the PokerStarsSpring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP). There were a lot of top players at the end.”

April’s SCOOP finale featured Gross in an epic heads-up battle with James Andy McLEOD Obst (pictured at left) in a $3,150 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed tournament. He grabbed second for $128,000 and explained what went wrong against the Aussie: “I think I just tried to win every pot. It had been working for me thus far in the tournament where any hand I’d play in Limit Hold’em, I’d be the raiser or re-raiser. I probably could have slowed down a bit heads-up and picked spots a little better. Andy’s also a really good Mixed Game player and I am pretty much a No Limit Hold’em donk, but it was a learning experience.” Obst earned $188,000 after winning the confrontation, which attracted one of the largest rails of 2009.

Also in February, Gross claimed the Monthly PLB title by edging out DoylesRoompro Chris moorman1 Moorman (pictured at left) by an incredible 0.39 points, the closest margin in the history of the award. On defeating the Brit, Gross told PocketFives.com, “It’s nice to compete against your friends and peers and come out on top. Moorman is a friend and really competitive, so I had to give him some crap about beating him by a fraction of a point.” Moorman would go on to claim the Triple Crown two months later; he also won the award in December.

A dominant force in the online poker world, Gross may soon turn to the brick-and-mortar felts entering 2010. He explained, “I’d like to make some noise in live tournaments. The past few years, I’ve been really focused on online poker and not put in much time elsewhere.” Gross logged two cashes at last year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) for $14,000 total. In 2008, he made a final table in a $1,000 rebuy event for $57,000.

Down the stretch, Sands (pictured at right) made a run at the Online Player of the Year honors. The third ranked player on PocketFives.com, Sands won the Full Tilt Poker $100 rebuy and PokerStars $215 rebuy within a week of each other in late December, earning him $90,000. At the beginning of the month, Sands took down the UB.com Sniper $80,000 Guaranteed for $21,000. Gross commented on Sands’ late surge: “Doc came on strong and I kind of cooled down towards the end of the year, so there was a sweat. I think he had to win a big Sunday major last month for it to happen and you can’t force those.”

Here’s a look at the top ten in the CardPlayer Online Player of the Year standings for 2009:

Congratulations from all of us at PocketFives.com to Steve gboro780 Gross for taking down the prestigious title.