It's hard to keep Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi down. He is once again the points leader in the 2007 Card Player Online Player of the Year (OPOY) standings by virtue of some huge recent wins.
Mizzi went from ninth place to first place in the OPOY standings in just three days. First, he navigated through a field of 1,072 to take down the eighth event at the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) IV – a pot-limit hold'em tournament – on May 18, earning almost $41,000. He then went on to best 3,058 other entrants to win the PokerStars Sunday Warmup just two days later, for almost $110,000. Those two tournaments alone earned him a combined 1,920 OPOY points.
Mizzi has also officially claimed his win in the $200 no-limit hold'em (with rebuys) event of the FTOPS III, which he won under the screen name kristy_sea. A representative from Full Tilt contacted Card Player directly to acknowledge that the site has attributed the win to Mizzi and that the kristy_sea account has been permanently closed, per Mizzi's request.
(Pertinent portions of the e-mail sent to Card Player from Full Tilt, per Mizzi's request – which include forwarded e-mail conversations and answers to direct questions – follow: "Congratulations on your win. I have gone ahead and swapped avatars for kristy_sea and Imper1um so that your account has the gold FTOPS one. … Yes, this [kristy_sea] account has been closed.")
Those two facts put his win in compliance with the OPOY qualification rules and unlocked a 720-point score for him. As of press time, Mizzi has 4,850 OPOY points and almost $400,000 in winnings from OPOY-qualified tournaments alone.
