GPI 300 Update: Dan Smith Wins Again; Anthony Gregg Tops WPT Parx Open and Rockets Up the Rankings

The European Poker Tour kicked off its ninth Season this week in Barcelona and quickly had an impact on the GPI 300. The €50,000 Super High Roller began on Wednesday with a field of fifty-five that was packed full of talent, including half of the current Global Poker Index Top Twenty. Not too surprisingly, one of the GPI Elite won the event. Dan Smith (GPI#3) went home with the big money and the bracelet, marking Smith’s fifth win and twentieth cash in 2012. Mike McDonald (GPI#7) finished 5th which moves him up 2 spots and Erik Seidel (GPI#8) finished right behind him in 6th and moves up 7 spots and back into the Top Ten.
Seidel moves up so much farther than McDonald despite the close finish because both McDonald and Seidel have excess cashes in Period 1, so their scores for this event replace other scores. The score being replaced for McDonald is a higher score than the one being replaced for Seidel, so Seidel actually gains more points than McDonald due to a greater net gain. Last week Seidel dropped from GPI#5 to GPI#15 when his score fell by 248 points due to aging results. The combination of having fallen to a rank several spots below McDonald and gaining more points allows him to shoot up more spots.
Unlike McDonald and Seidel, Smith stays in the 3rd spot this week, despite beating both of the seemingly immovable Jason Mercier (GPI#1) and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (GPI#2) in the Super High Roller.  Smith earned 458 points for his EPT win this week but he also has excess cashes in Period 1 so this win replaces another score, his win in the EPT Grand Final – Monte Carlo €5,000 NLHE 6-Max. This leaves him a net gain in Period 1 of 110 points. In addition to the Period 1 changes, his runner-up finish in the 2011 Parx Open Classic $1,850 NLHE Main Event ages into Period 3 replacing his cash in the 2011 Battle at the Beach $3,200 NLHE Championship Event costing him a combined 122 points. Unfortunately, he has no score to replace the Parx Open Classic score in Period 2 leaving him with only three of the possible four scores in that Period. This leaves him a total score drop of 12 points. Adding to the aging result from Period 2 hurting Smith’s score this week, one of the main reasons that Smith has not yet caught up to Mercier and Grospellier is that he has very few scores in the lower aging factor Periods of 4, 5 and 6. The GPI formula rewards both recent performance and consistent results over time. Of a possible nine scores in those older Periods, Smith only has four while Mercier and Grospellier both have the full complement of nine. However, his Period 1 scores will begin to age in October allowing him to begin to pick up scores in lower Periods. If he continues to cash as frequently as he has recently, he will soon become a consistent threat to Mercier and Grospellier at the top of the Rankings.
The final GPI 300 player to cash in the €50,000 Super High Roller was Michael Watson (GPI#40 +28). He earns 167 net points for his 3rd place finish, the second highest of any GPI 300 player this week. Watson has been on the Index every week since last October and cracked the Top Fifty in April. He fell below that threshold five weeks ago but is back in the Top Fifty this week thanks to his performance in Barcelona.

WPT Parx Open Classic Hosts a Stacked GPI Field
The WPT Parx Open Classic $3,300 NLHE Main Event also concluded this week with fourteen GPI 300 ranked players finishing in the money. Anthony Gregg won the event and gets a big boost from the 344 points he earned. He moves up 103 spots to GPI#106, the most spots of any GPI 300 player this week.David Paredes rides the 166 points he earned for his cash in this event up the second most spots this week to GPI#213. Also cashing and moving up were Brock Parker (GPI#103 +1), Allen Bari (GPI#197 +25), Jonathan Turner (GPI#167 +2),Allen Kessler (GPI#67 +7), Victor Ramdin (GPI#93 +2), Steve Brecher (GPI#168 +11), and Nicholas Grippo (GPI#206 +8).
Four newcomers to the GPI 300 also cashed in the Parx Open Main Event, as well as Kevin Calenzo who returns to the Index at GPI#281.Kunal Patel (GPI#248), Paul Volpe (GPI#262), Vineet Pahuja (GPI#267), and Athanasios Polychronopoulos (GPI#296) all make their debut this week.

Returning to the GPI 300
Along with Calenzo, Paul Lieu also returns this week at GPI#289. Prior to this year’s WSOP, Lieu had only three scores counting in the all important Period 1. That changed when he cashed three times in a little over a week at the World Series, giving him two excess cashes in Period 1, counting one and excluding two of his three World Series scores. This week his final table score from the Deep Stack Extravaganza I $2,500 NLHE Main Event back in February ages into Period 2. This allows his cash in the WSOP $1,500 NLHE Ante Only event to count in Period 1 giving him a net gain in Period 1 of 49 points and pushing him into the GPI 300. He’s going to get more good news next week when his cash in the L.A. Poker Classic $10,000 NLHE Championship also ages into Period 2 and allows his remaining WSOP score into Period 1. He will lose 66 points for aging but gain 84 points for the new result which could push him up a few more spots.

Leo Fernandez and Others Out of the GPI 300
Leo Fernandez has been in the GPI 300 since its inception in June of 2011, ranking as high as GPI# 57 at one point. Fernandez’s last two GPI qualifying scores were at the Latin American Poker Tour IV – Grand Finale back in February. Both of those scores age into Period 2 this week leaving him without any Period 1 scores which causes his exit from the Top Three Hundred. Also leaving the GPI 300 this week are Dan Murariu, Paul Nunes, Marc Inizan, Eric Baldwin, and David Pham.