Leading the way was PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu who collected the headline award for Poker's Best Ambassador.
Back-to-back WSOP main event final-tablist Mark Newhouse took home the award for Tournament Performance of the Year after his incredible run to consecutive November Nines.
The #1 player on the all-time leading money list for women was also naturally recognized as Vanessa Selbst was pre-picked as the GPI Female Player of the Year.
Dan Colman, who won $22m in live tournaments last year, was pre-picked as the GPI Player of the Year.
Successful First Initiative from GPI CEO Alex Dreyfus
The driving force behind the creation of the American Poker Awards is Global Poker Index CEO Alex Dreyfus, who launched the event last year before even getting a list of nominees in place.
Committed to the task of "sportifying" poker and further integrating it into mainstream sports culture, the inaugural APAs sure looked the part of a seasoned industry.
Held in the luxury SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, a who's who of industry bigwigs were on hand to celebrate some of the year's best accomplishments.
Among the attendees were Negreanu, WPT president Adam Pliska, EPT president Edgar Stuchly, WSOP TD Jack Effel, the WPT's Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten and countless A-list poker pros from Liv Boeree and Jason Mercier to Dan Shak and Dan Smith.
The WSOP collected two awards for "Event of the Year" - one for under $2k buy-in and one for over $2k - for the Main Event and the Monster Stack.
Other notable awards went to Brandon Shack-Harris for "Breakout Player of the Year" and Pliska for "Industry Person of the Year."
Check the full list of nominees here. Award winners below:
Lifetime Achievement Award: WPT founder Steve Lipscomb Poker's Best Ambassador: Daniel Negreanu GPI Player of the Year: Dan Colman GPI Female Player of the Year: Vanessa Selbst Industry Person of the Year: Adam Pliska, WPT President Tournament Performance of the Year: Mark Newhouse, WSOP Main Event, 9th Breakout Player of the Year: Brandon Shack-Harris Event of the Year (buy-in over $2,000): WSOP Main Event Event of the Year (buy-in under $2,000): WSOP Monster Stack Innovation of the Year: Twitch Opens Its Doors to Live Streaming Poker Charitable Initiative of the Year: “All In” for Kids Poker Tournament Presented by CHOP & WPT Foundation Media Content of the Year: Brad Willis, “WSOP 2014: Stages / Never stop fighting” for PokerStars Blog Media Person of the Year: Chris Grove, Online Poker Report
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