Dan Smith Back On Top; PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Underway

Last week Marvin Rettenmaier became the fifth player ever to reach the top of the GPI rankings. He reached the top by a very narrow margin, a mere 4 points, and after only one week Dan Smith has taken the GPI Number One spot back thanks to the aging of older events. When you are at the top of the rankings, scores in all six Periods can have an impact. Both players lose points due to aging this week, but Smith’s is less impactful. Smith loses points due to his cash in the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event aging out of Period 6, the oldest of the scoring periods. This score was replaced by a less valuable one, his cash in the 2010 $1000 NLHE WSOP event, resulting in a modest 11 point net drop. However, Rettenmaier drops a total of 50 points, erasing his lead and leaving him 34 points behind Smith. Rettenmaier had two scores age. His cash in the 2012 WSOP $10,000 NLHE 6-Max event aged from Period 1 to Period 2 causing a loss of 59 points, and his cash in the 2011 WSOP $10,000 Main Event aged into Period 4 causing a loss of 41 points. These cashes were replaced by other results to make back some of the lost ground, but the overall effect was a net 50 point drop and a new Number One for the second week in a row.

PCA Super High Roller Starts the Action in 2013

After a few quiet weeks winding down the 2012 season, the poker world has regrouped in the Bahamas for the 10^th annual PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. The PCA started off with a bang showcasing a pro packed field at the $100,000 Super High Roller event. The event attracted a field of 47 with an additional 12 re-entries racking up a prize pool of over $5.7 million. Winning the event and recording the largest upward movement in rank was Scott Seiver (GPI#39 +56). Seiver only had two cashes in the all important Period 1, the most recent being a 10th place finish in the WSOP-E €10,000 Main Event last September. This left him with three open slots in that Period and allows him to pick up a whopping 344 points from his win in the Super High Roller and a return to the Top Fifty.

Seiver was not the only GPI ranked player at the final table of the Super High Roller event. Seven out of the eight are among the GPI Elite. Finishing in 2^nd place was David ‘Doc’ Sands (GPI#7) who moves up 2 spots thanks to the net 163 points he gains.Nick Schulman finished 3rd and moves up 30 spots to GPI#54.Cary Katz (GPI#50 +28) took 4^th place and the second largest score improvement this week with a gain of 170 points.Philipp Gruissem rejoins the GPI Top Ten thanks to his 5^th place finish. He improves 4 spots due to a 44 net point gain from this cash. Rounding out the members of the GPI 300 at the final table were newcomer Vladimir Troyanovskiy (GPI#268) finishing 7^th and Dan Shak finishing 8^th. Shak moves up 5 spots to GPI#37.

Hutter and Others Make Their GPI 300 Debut

In addition to Troyanovskiy, joining the GPI 300 this week are Barry Hutter (GPI#281), Tam Truong (GPI#284), and Cesar Garcia (GPI#300). Hutter’s first live tournament cash was back in March of 2010 but despite success at the tables during 2010 and 2011 he only had two GPI qualifying cashes giving him a GPI score of less than 20 points at the beginning of 2012. However, that changed dramatically throughout the year and he swiftly moved up the rankings. In 2012, Hutter cashed in ten GPI qualifying events, including three cashes at the WSOP and wins at both the Florida State Poker Championship and the 2012 Isle Open, allowing him to boost his GPI score to 1101 points and earn a spot among the GPI Elite.

Welcome Back to the GPI 300

Robert Cezarescu returns to the GPI 300 this week thanks to a first place finish in the PokerFest 2012 Brasov €730 NLHE event. That win is enough to boost Cezarescu to GPI#288.  Also returning to the GPI Elite is Jude Ainsworth. Ainsworth finished 22^nd at the WPT National €1,200 NLHE Main Event in Dublin and returns at GPI#273.Other familiar faces among this week’s rankings includeMartins Adeniya (GPI#275), Manuel Bevand (GPI#276), George Dunst (GPI#282), James Dempsey (GPI#287), William Thorson (GPI#290), Max Silver (GPI#292), Brian Hawkins (GPI#295), Randy Lew (GPI#296), Eric Sfez (GPI#297), and Hafiz Khan (GPI#298).