Rocco Palumbo won the WPT Venice €3,000 Grand Prix and shoots up 56 spots to GPI#85. This is Palumbo’s highest rank to date and his first time in the Top One Hundred. Palumbo’s score for his win is now his largest Period 1 score and replaces his lowest Period 1 score for a net gain of 246 points. Matt Salsberg bubbled the final table and moves up 16 spots to GPI#64. The 2011 WSOP Main Event runner-up, Martin Staszko, finished 10^th and returns to the GPI 300 this week at GPI#248. Also returning is Ludovic Lacay who placed 12^th in the Venice event and is back among the GPI Elite at GPI#276.

The largest jump in rank this week goes to online poker whiz Calvin  Anderson. Anderson finished 5^th in the Irish Open €3,000 NLHE Main Event in which Kevin MacPhee (GPI#33 +6) and Dermot Blain (GPI#126 +19) also cashed. This is only Anderson’s third live tournament cash this year leaving him a lot of opportunity to make another big jump with his next deep run.

Top 20 Changes: Shak in, Smith Out

Dan Shakis the newest member of the GPI Top Twenty and the 75^th player to be counted among the best of the best. Shak reaches the Top Twenty this week mostly thanks to the aging results of Dan Smith (GPI#28 -15) and Scott Seiver (GPI#20 0). However, Shak has been steadily climbing the rankings since reaching the Top One Hundred in late October when he finished 17^th in the $10,000 NLHE Championship at the Festa Al Lago. Since then Shak has cashed in seven GPI qualifying events including a pair of 4^th place finishes in the Aussie Millions A$10,600 NLHE Main Event and the NLHE A$100,000 Challenge.

Smith’s aging results cause him to drop out of the Top Twenty this week. Smith spent 16 weeks at GPI#1 but hasn’t cashed in a GPI qualifying event yet this year and has therefore been falling in the rankings over the last several weeks. This week his score for cashing in the EPT San Remo €2,000 NLHE Re-Entry event ages into Period 2 where it is excluded by the five cash cap costing him 161 points and leaving him with only two Period 1 scores. Additionally two of his 2011 EPT/UK & Ireland –London scores age into Period 4 costing him an additional net 166 points lowering his overall score 327 points.

Wade Exits GPI Elite

Tristan Wade has fallen to GPI#313. Wade had been ranked in the GPI 300 all 93 weeks since it’s inception in June of 2011 ranking as high as GPI#65 by the end of that year.
Making their GPI 300 debut are Tobias Peters (GPI#292), Kyle Frey (GPI#293), Stephen Bokor (GPI#295) and Anaras Alekberovas (GPI#299).

Next Week: Ivey Moves Up After WSOP APAC Victory

The results from the WSOP Asia-Pacific festival will begin to roll in next week beginning with the A$2,200 Mixed and A$1,650 PLO events. Phil Ivey (GPI#95 +6) won his ninth bracelet by besting everyone in the Mixed event and should get a nice boost in rank next week. James Collopy won the PLO event and has a shot at a return to the GPI 300. To get the win he had to outlast a tough field that included World Number One Marvin Rettenmaier who finished 9^th.