April 23 2015, by Eric Danis

Record Breaker: How Schemion “Beat the Streak”

Taking a closer look at how Ole Schemion made history on Wednesday…

BEAT THE STREAK

Ole Schemion GPIOle Schemion (GPI#1) became the very first player to be ranked #1 on the GPI World Poker Rankings for 18 consecutive weeks on Wednesday, breaking a record previously shared by a pair of star Americans: Jason Mercier (GPI#8) and Dan Smith (GPI#20).

The German superstar won the 2013 and 2014 GPI European Poker Player of the Year races, and those results have gone a long, long way in helping him stay at #1 for so long. Schemion, who has spent the second most weeks ever at the top (more on that later), passed by his previous personal-best 8-straight weeks at the top of the rankings early on during this current run.

A total of five players have seen their streaks reach the double-digits in GPI history, other than the trio of Schemion, Mercier and Smith. Incredibly, Mercier has held double-digit streaks on three different occasions in his career:

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18 AND COUNTING

Ole Schemion GPISchemion has managed to sit above the 4,000-point mark during the streak, an impressive feat in itself … in fact, only a single player, Smith, has hit the 4,000-point mark during that time, and it was the first week where Schemion took over from Smith atop the GPI World Poker Rankings.

Amazingly, Schemion or Smith have been at the top of the GPI World Poker Rankings for 42 consecutive weeks. The last person to hold the #1 spot prior to someone other than Schemion or Smith was Vanessa Selbst (GPI#89) who was ranked #1 the week of June 25, 2014.

Schemion’s total score has however been going down consistently in the past few weeks. He’s entering a critical spot at the moment. His EPT Sanremo High Roller victory entered a third scoring period this week and his results from the EPT Grand Final, including his 7th place finish in the Super High Roller event will also lose value starting next week.

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THE YEAR OF OLE

Earlier this year, Schemion broke the record for consecutive weeks at #1 to start the poker season. Schemion is now spending his 16th straight week at #1 to start 2015, breaking Dan Smith’s record of seven straight weeks at #1 to begin the 2013 poker season … fellow German star Marvin Rettenmaier (GPI#91) put an end to Smith’s streak at that time.

Poker superstar Daniel Negreanu (GPI#10) will forever be part of the record books having spent just one week atop the rankings to start the 2014 poker season. The player who replaced Kid Poker at #1 that second week of the season? You guessed it, Ole Schemion!

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LONG WAY FROM TIGER, FEDERER

Although Schemion did make history this week, he’s still far away from matching consecutive weeks records established by two superstars in the sports world, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.

Tiger holds the two longest consecutive weeks at #1 streaks since the Official Golf Rankings were first released in April of 1986. Tiger has spent 281 and 264 consecutive weeks at #1 – you read that right, consecutive streaks of over 5 years!

Rory McIlroy holds the current streak at 38 consecutive weeks.

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Lorena Ochoa holds the record on the LPGA. Ochoa was ranked #1 on the Rolex Rankings for 158 consecutive weeks between April 2007 and May 2010.

Onto tennis where who else but Federer once spent 237 consecutive weeks at #1, 44 weeks (almost a full year) shy of Tiger’s record. That’s well over a year longer than Jimmy Connors spent on top. The American legend was ranked #1 for 160 consecutive weeks at one point during his illustrious career.

Novak Djokovic holds the current streak, he has been ranked #1 since July 7, 2014.

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Steffi Graf holds the record over the WTA. Graf was ranked #1 for 186 straight weeks at one point in her career. Serena Williams‘ current streak of 114 straight weeks at the top of the WTA standings has her ranked 3rd in WTA history.

By the way, talking about record streaks … no one may ever come close to the great Bruno Sammartino. The wrestling legend from, you know, the days that wrestling wasn’t fake ;), held the WWE (then WWF) World Championship Title for 2,803 days – over 7 years!!!

For now, Schemion will concentrate on holding on for week #19, we’ll worry about the 7-year plan later …

 

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About the author

Eric Danis’ passion for poker came at a very early age but it’s when writing about and covering the game he loves that Danis is most in his element. Danis is better known for creating www.PTPRpoker.com where he spent a few years covering poker events. Danis is also known for having worked on the poker shows Poker Eh! and The Pulse on the Quad Jacks Network.