What can we say about 2021 in poker? A whole heap! Let's stop our jabbering and start doing a little review of the things we learned about poker in 2021.

WSOP big winners

The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas played host to the 2021 World Series of Poker and what an event was. After the 2020 WSOP was canceled, excitement was at a fever pitch when proceedings began on 30 September. With two bracelet wins and 4,194.59 points, Josh Arieh was the player of the year at 2021 WSOP. Meanwhile, Koray Aldemir was the winner of the 2022 $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event, besting no fewer than 6,649 other entrants. Aldemir was also the player with the most WSOP cashes, with 30 to his name and total winnings adding up to $3,040,322. Not a bad few weeks' work, eh? READ: PokerStars 2022 details and results

Top male and female players on the Global Poker Index

It's also been a great year for Almedin Imsirovic, who's 2021's top player on the Global Poker Index at the moment. He's been #1 on the GPI ranking system for just about half the year, with a bevy of impressive Live Tournament cashes under his belt this year. Of course he appeared in the WSOP, bringing down over a quarter of a million during the $50,000 buy-in Event #85 High Roller. More recently, he took down a whopping $695,355 payday during the World Poker Tour Rock ‘N' Roll Poker Open for a first-place win in their High Roller event. He also tipped over half a mil in winnings in one go at the PokerGo Tour Aria High Roller Series and the Super High Roller Bowl Europe. Let's also have a shout out for Nadya Magnus, who's GPI's number one ranked female player. Her biggest win of the year came early, where she took home just shy of $100,000 at the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock. Since then she's been steadily racking up impressive wins at the biggest Live Tournaments across the United States. Definitely one to watch going into 2022.

Biggest online players for 2021

Of course, the online market is absolutely massive. This vibrant place is a haunt of seriously seasoned pros. As it stands at time of writing, the top three players for 2021 are pvigar, LarsLuzak and whatisL0v3. Hailing from Brazil, Pedro Vinícius Garagnani, aka pvigar, has got a total of over $8 million in cashes under his belt. Meanwhile, Finnish player Sami Kelopuro, aka LarsLuzak, has scored well over $22 million in wins since he began his online career in 2013. And based in Malta, it's been another good year for Enrico Camosci, WhatisL0v3, who has scooped a lifetime total of $12 million.

2021 in poker legalizations

It's truly very tricky to keep up with all the online poker legalizations and their various dramas. But we've got a few of 2021's highlights for you:

• Michigan online poker kicked things off nice and early in 2021, with online poker becoming available from 29 January. They've also made noises about joining the Multi-State Internet Agreement, which would open up player fields across member state lines
• Connecticut technically legalized online poker in spring of 2021, but the year didn't see any providers opening up shop
• In early 2021, online poker legislation was introduced in Illinois, although nothing has come of it yet

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