GPI Turns Six Months Old

GPI Turns Six Months Old

This week marks the six-month anniversary of the Global Poker Index. As promised at the outset, the GPI model will be reviewed every six months and adjusted where necessary to reflect the changing landscape of live tournament poker. The first of these reviews occurs this week.

One of the key features of the GPI is the cap on results that count towards a player’s score in each of the six half-year Periods that the GPI scores. This cap is necessary to control for a player getting a high GPI score merely due to playing a higher than average number of tournaments.  For the first six months of the GPI, there was a cap of three results that could count toward a player’s GPI score per Period. The cap of three was determined by evaluating the average number of results per half-year Period for the group of professional players defined as the individuals who qualified for The Epic Poker League.

Now that the GPI has been operating for six months, the group of professional players has been redefined from the Epic Poker League qualifiers to the players in the GPI Top 300. Week to week, this group constitutes the most active players on the tour, so they are the most representative set to evaluate the cap on results.  This redefinition of the consideration set of professional live tournament players, along with a general increase in live tournament play, resulted in an increase in the cap on results in Periods 1, 2 and 3 from the three highest scores to the four highest. The cap on results in Periods 4, 5 and 6 remains at three. The cap of the four highest scoring finishes for the most recent three Periods, Periods 1 through 3, and the cap of the three highest scoring finishes for the three Periods most distant, Periods 4 through 6, reflects the average number of cashes for the players in the GPI 300 across the entire 36 month period that the GPI measures.

The New Cap Shakes Up the Top Ten

While the overall scores of the top six ranked players from last week all went up due to the addition of three new scores counting for each, the order of the top six remained the same. Jason Mercier (GPI#1) held on to the top spot for the second week in a row, with Bertrand “ElkY” Grosellier (GPI#2), Erik Seidel (GPI#3), Eugene Katchalov (GPI#4), Sam Trickett (GPI#5) and Shawn Buchanan (GPI#6) rounding out the top six. Sorel Mizzi (GPI#7 +1) got a bump up a spot due to a 320 point gain from the addition of a fourth result to Periods 1, 2 and 3. Will Failla (GPI #8 +6) surged into the Top Ten for the first time with a 475 point gain while Matthew Waxman (GPI#10 +1) nudged his way back into the Top Ten with a 382 point boost. Failla’s biggest gain comes from his second place finish in the €5,000 NLHE 6-Max TURBO at WSOPE now counting in Period 1.

Both Sam Stein (GPI#9 -2) and Chris Moorman (GPI#12 -3) suffered small drops due to the additional scores counting. Despite a 186 point gain, Stein drops two spots due to Failla and Waxman leapfrogging him. Likewise, Moorman, with a 190 point gain, falls out of the top ten for the same reason.

EPT Prague and Bellagio Five Diamond Classic

Results straggling in from the Bellagio $5,000 NLHE and EPT Prague €10,000 NLHE re-entry and €5,000 NLHE 6-Max Turbo events were responsible for the biggest movements in the GPI this week. Chris McClung (GPI#189) had the highest boost in this week’s GPI. His seventh place finish in the EPT NLHE re-entry shot him up the rankings 101 spots. The winner of that event, John Andress, debuted at #253 while the second place finisher, Mike McDonald (GPI#13 +32) also got a huge bump up 32 places. MacDonald was ranked GPI#141 when the Index debuted in June but thanks to a stellar performance this Fall, including a win at Epic Poker’s 8-Max Main Event, two third place finishes and his second place this week, MacDonald is now threatening the Top Ten.

Jean Noel Thorel (GPI#128 +99) had the second largest upward movement in the rankings due to his third place finish at Bellagio. The winner of that event, Zachary Clark (GPI#217) returned to the GPI for the first time since October 4^th. The second place finisher in the Bellagio $5,000 NLHE, Todd Terry, jumped 69 spots to GPI#74. Matt Marifioti (GPI#19, -9), who finished ninth at Bellagio, gained 110 points this week but dropped 9 spots mainly due to other players getting a larger benefit from the increase to four results counting toward the first three periods. While some players added a fourth score in all three Periods, Marafioti adds a fourth score in Periods 1 and 2 but loses a score in Period 3 because his 2010 WSOP cash ages into Period 4 and is not replaced leaving him with only two scores in Period 3 as opposed to the four scores other players now have.

EPT Prague’s €5,000 NLHE 6-Max Turbo was responsible for some additional significant jumps in the GPI this week. Winner Anton Wigg (GPI#121) soared 77 spots. Fourth place finisher Kent Lundmark (GPI#105) jumped 17 places in the rankings while Joni Jouhkimainen (GPI#288) entered the GPI for the first time with his fifth place in the event. Bryn Kenney (GPI#21 +18) also final tabled the event but the score was not one of his best four in Period 1 so it did not count toward his ranking. His 18 place jump was due to a 424 point increase in his overall score this week. 303 of those points were gained in Periods 1 and 3 when he added a fourth score previously excluded by the cap.  The other 121 points were a result of his 2010 and 2011 WSOP cashes aging into Periods 2 and 5 where he previously did not have three scores.

David Sands Returns to the Top Twenty

Last week David “Doc” Sands (GPI#14 +7) fell five spots in the rankings despite gaining 45 points when his second place finish in the Bellagio $100K NLHE High-Roller event replaced a lower score in Period 1.  The drop was due to a WSOP result aging into Period 4. This week, he earned back the five place drop and more, surging seven spots in the rankings back into the Top Twenty in large part due to adding a fourth score in Periods 1 and 2.

WSOP Main Event Champion and Runner-Up Make Their GPI Debuts

With the new cap of four scores counting in Period 1, WSOP Main Event Champion Pius Heinz (GPI#277) made his debut in the rankings this week. Heinz has exactly four total qualifying live tournament cashes, all of which occurred in Period 1. With the increase in the cap to four results per period, Heinz now gets credit for his
23^rd place finish at the EPT Prague €2,000 NLHE this month, just nudging him into the rankings. Martin Staszko (GPI#263), who finished runner-up to Heinz in the Main Event, debuted just ahead of him in the GPI this week. With four results counting in Period 1, Staszko now gets credit for his in-the-money finish in a $1,500 PLO Hi/Lo WSOP event this past summer, allowing him to squeak into the rankings along with Heinz. But with WSOP Main Event results aging into Period 2 in just a few weeks, both Heinz and Staszko will have to post new and significant results in January and February to hold their spots in the GPI 300.

Other players who made their GPI debuts this week are:

Sean Getzwiller (GPI#211)
Max Silver (GPI#252)
David Sonelin (GPI#254)
Khiem Nguyen (GPI#262)
Ray Qartomy (GPI#292)
Sigurd Andreas Eskeland (GPI#298)

Big Names, Big Drops

Some big names felt the effects of WSOP results continuing to age into Period 2 this week. Seasonal drops among some of poker’s biggest names are not a surprise since many of them choose to play primarily during the WSOP, leaving a large part of the year with relatively few cashes. Phil Hellmuth (GPI#30 -15) dropped out of the Top Twenty due in part to his score in the 2011 WSOP $5,000 NLHE 6-Max aging into Period 2, leaving only three Period 1 scores and one Period 3 score. Fabrice Soulier (GPI#32 -19) and Michael Mizrachi (GPI#36 -20) joined Hellmuth in his exit from the Top Twenty. Soulier’s victory in the 2011 WSOP $10,000 HORSE aged into Period 2 this week, contributing to a 63 point loss despite the cap increase. Mizrachi also lost points, 52 total, due to a score in the 2010 WSOP aging into Period 4 where he already had 3 scores.

The marquee player hurt the most by aging of results over the last month is Daniel Negreanu (GPI#69 -21). As recently as October 24, 2011, Negreanu ranked in the Top Twenty and in September he was in the Top Ten. As his 2011 WSOP results age into Period 2 and his 2010 WSOP results age into Period 4, combined with only one qualifying cash counting in Period 1 toward his overall GPI score, Negreanu has plummeted in the rankings this Fall.

The biggest drop this week belonged to Randy Dorfman (GPI#206) who fell 126 places in the rankings. Dorfman had two 2011 WSOP cashes age into Period 2 and has only one small cash in Period 1 counting toward his total score, resulting in a net loss of 258 points this week. In a week where most players picked up points due to the increase in the cap to four scores in Periods 1, 2 and 3, this proved devastating to Dorfman’s position.

Some other big names hit hard by the aging of 2010 and 2011 WSOP results this week were:

Jonathan Duhamel (GPI#75 -40)
Barry Greenstein (GI#93 -36)
Carlos Mortensen (GPI#94 -27)
Daniel Alaei (GPI#120 -77)
Michael Binger (GPI#124 -70)
John Juanda (GPI#224 -50)
Erick Lindgren (GPI#237 -64)

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Mike McDonald (GPI#13)
Phil Hellmuth (GPI#30)
Daniel Negreanu (GPI#69)
Ben Lamb (GPI#27)
Nick Binger (GPI#155)
Pius Heinz (GPI#277)