GPI Update: Mercier Sets New Record; Shooting Stars Join the GPI

The Global Poker Index ranks professional level tournament performance over a rolling 36-month period where more recent results are weighted more heavily than older results. Learn more about how the Global Poker Index is calculated.

Seidel Slides Out of the Top Four; O’Dwyer Enters the Top Ten

Jason Mercier holds onto the Global Poker Index Number One ranking this week and in doing so sets a new record for the total number of weeks any player has held the top spot.  The previous record of fifteen weeks was set by Erik Seidel on February 6th.  Mercier took over the top spot the following week and has held it ever since, bypassing Seidel’s record this week with his sixteenth Number One ranking.  Mercier is holding the top spot in such impressive fashion that although he finished 27th at last week’s Bay 101 Shooting Stars $9,500 NLHE Championship Bounty event he does not need the 226 points that finish awarded him to stay on top.  With seven GPI qualifying scores in Period 1, three of his scores are being excluded by the cap including this most recent one.  Having a score that large excluded and still sitting in the top spot demonstrates why he is Number One.

Having had possibly the most impressive year of poker ever last year, Erik Seidel has been quiet in the past few months and therefore is falling in the rankings.  Seidel (GPI#5 -2) falls out of the top four for the first time with an overall score drop of 253 points, the largest drop in points of any player this week.  This is due to his fourth place finish in the Epic Poker League NLHE 8-Max event aging into Period 2 and knocking out his lower Period 2 score from the 2011 WSOP Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo Championship.  Seidel’s fall to GPI#5 allows Shawn Buchanan (GPI #3) to move up one spot and David Sands to break into the top four which until two weeks ago had only been inhabited by four players; Mercier, Seidel, Bertrand Grospellier (GPI#2 0) and Eugene Katchalov (GPI#6 +1).  Sands rode his runner-up finish at the LAPC NLHE Championship to GPI#6 last week and reaches GPI#4 this week thanks to Sorel Mizzi (GPI#7 -2) moving down in the rankings.  Mizzi would have moved into the top four this week had his win in the 2011 WPT Rendez-Vous à Paris NLHE High Roller not aged into Period 2.  The aging of that event knocks his 2011 WSOP cash in the $1,500 NLHE event out causing most of his 195 point overall score drop and his fall in the rankings.
Moving up in the rankings this week is Steve O’Dwyer, who enters the Top Ten for the first time.  O’Dwyer continued his impressive play of late by winning the £1,500 NLHE Main Event at the WPT National Series in Denmark.  O’Dwyer has cashed thirteen times, ten times in GPI qualifying events, since he finished in-the-money in the WSOP Main Event last July.  In those thirteen events his lowest finish was 10th while winning four events and finishing 2nd in three.  This impressive play is reflected in the fact that his WPTN win only raises his overall score slightly.  He earns 236 points for his WPTN win but because he already had four scores in Period 1, it replaces his 231 point score for his 6th place finish in the 2011 WSOP Europe NLHE Shootout netting him 5 points.  Those 5 points were all he needed to move into the Top Ten because Matt Waxman, who was GPI#10 last week, sees his score drop significantly.  Like Mizzi, Waxman’s score from the WPT Rendez-Vous à Paris ages into Period 2 knocking out another score, in Waxman’s case his cash in the Deep Stack Extravaganza III Main Event, lowering his overall score 250 points and causing his fall to GPI#17.

Sam Trickett (GPI#29) falls out of the Top Twenty this week.  His PartyPoker.com World Open VI NLHE win ages into Period 4 where it is excluded by the cap dropping his overall score 135 points causing him to fall 11 spots.  He is replaced by Roberto Romanello (GPI#20 +7) who gains 60 points this week.  Previously Romanello’s final table score from last year’s Full Tilt Series in Madrid was excluded by the cap in Period 2 but that score ages into Period 3 this week where Romanello only had two scores allowing it to count.

Cajelais Makes His GPI Debut; Serock Returns 

The Bay 101 Shooting Stars $9,500 NLHE Championship Bounty event concluded last week with five faces familiar to the GPI at the final table.  Joseph Serock (GPI#125) earned 417 points for his 3rd place finish and returns to the GPI at his highest rank to date.  Serock was GPI#149 when the Index debuted in June 2011 and was on and off the Index until January but never at as high a ranking as this week.  Erik Cajelais finished 4th in San Jose earning 392 points and makes his Index debut at GPI#161.  Andrew Badecker (GPI#103) took 5th place in the event.  He earns 373 points and moves up a huge 132 spots, the most of any player this week, and now sits just outside the Top One Hundred.  Joe Elpayaa also makes a big move in the rankings this week.    The sixth place finisher moves up 121 spots to GPI#123 and his highest rank to date.  Scott Baumstein (GPI#48 +66) earns 332 points for his 8th place finish for, the second largest score gain of the week, and joins the Top Fifty.

San Jose wasn’t the only place GPI ranked players were sitting at final tables recently.  Jean-Philippe Rohr (GPI#85) won the WPT National Series NLHE High Roller event in Mauritius earning 236 points for his victory.  He moves up 72 spots this week and into the Top One Hundred for the first time.  Also in Mauritius, Bruno Lopes final tabled the £1,100 Main event contributing to his 46 spot jump to GPI#236.  David Vamplew (GPI#144 +27) finished 6th in the Palm Beach Big Game £1,000 NLHE event gaining 82 points and moving up in the rankings.

While players with recent cashes see their star’s rise, some without recent cashes experience big drops in the rankings.  Dropping the most spots in the rankings this week were Tim West (GPI#283 -82), Isaac Baron (GPI# 177) and Alexander Kravchenko (GPI#136 -57), all of whom have been on the Index since it’s beginning.  West takes the biggest slide of the week, dropping 77 spots.  After cashing in the Epic Poker League NLHE 8-Max back in September, he briefly ranked in the Top One Hundred but finds himself this week at his lowest rank to date and close to falling off the Index completely.  His EPL cash ages into Period 2 this week, knocking out his score for a 4th place finish in a Heartland Poker Tour event last year.  This leaves him with no scores in Period 1 and lowers his overall score 156 points.  Isaac Baron (GPI# 177 -72) also takes a big tumble this week due to his EPL 8-Max cash aging.  It knocks out his 2011 WSOP PLO cash dropping his overall score 205 points giving him his lowest rank to date as well.  Finally, Alexander Kravchenko (GPI#136 -57) falls out of the Top One Hundred for the first time this week after ranking as high as GPI#33 when the Index debuted.  He loses 181 points this week because his score from the 2011 PokerStars Russian Poker Series NLHE Main Event in Kiev ages into Period 2 and is excluded by the cap.

Debuting on the Global Poker Index

Bryce Yockey (GPI#267) finished 34th in the Bay 101 Shooting Stars $9,500 NLHE Championship Bounty event and is joined by final tabler Erik Cajelais in joining the Index this week.

Returning to the Global Poker Index

Josh Arieh also cashed in the Bay 101 Shooting Stars NLHE event.  He and final tabler Joseph Serock both rejoin the Index this week.  Randy Dorfman (GPI#298), Yuliyan Nikolaev Kolev (GPI#299), and Mark Radoja (GPI#300), also return to the Index this week.

Exiting the Global Poker Index

Among those exiting the Index this week is Manual Bevand. Bevand was a part of the Index’s inaugural list and has been ranked every week since, hitting a high of GPI#88 on October 4th, 2011.  Also exiting this week is Evgeny Zaytzev, who has been on the Index continuously since September 12, 2011. Rounding out this week’s departures are Nicolas Chouity, Christophe Benzimra, Stephane Benadiba, Joe Cassidy and Mike Leah.