Byron Kaverman Tops GPI for Fourth Straight Week
Every Wednesday, the Global Poker Index (GPI) releases it updated World Poker Rankings, which attempt to determine who the most successful live tournament player in the world is right now, taking into account results of the past three years. For the fourth week in a row, it is Byron Kaverman sitting atop the list with 4,257.36, just barely ahead of former number one Jason Mercier, who has 4,200.22. Defending World Poker Tour (WPT) Player of the Year Anthony Zinno is the only other player with at least 4,000 points, breaking that threshold by six.
When looking at a player’s tournament record on the GPI’s website, it can be a bit confusing, with points awarded for some tournaments and not others, and some points greyed out, seemingly not counted. Let’s quickly explain what’s going on.
Byron Kaverman
Image credit: globalpokerindex.com
The GPI uses at most 27 tournament results per player dating back three years (this is a rolling time frame, not constrained to specific calendar years). For each of the most recent three half-year intervals, a player’s top five results are used, while for each of the next three half-year intervals, just four are used. A tournament can be counted towards the GPI if it has a field of at least 21 players, if the buy-in is at least one dollar, and the player finished in the money.
Scores for a tournament are determined by a player’s finish relative to the total field as well as the buy-in, though there is currently a $20,000 buy-in cap, which means anything above that still just counts as a $20,000 tourney. Finally, an aging factor is tacked on which weights results from the most recent half-year period more than the previous half-year period and so on dating back three years. Once a tournament is more than three years old, it no longer counts in anybody’s GPI score.
Since last week’s GPI rankings were published, Byron Kaverman has had one cash, an 8th place finish in a €1,100 WSOP Europe event, good for €13,094. This would normally have earned him 155.79 points, but because he has five higher scores in the past six months, this one was not counted. Thus, his overall total remained the same. The same holds true for Jason Mercier, who also has a recent WSOP Europe cash.
Amongst the top ten in the GPI there was some shifting. Paul Volpe and Stephen Chidwick swapped places, with Volpe now fifth and Chidwick seventh. Bryn Kenney and Mustapha Kanit each moved up one spot to eight and ninth, respectively, while Brian Rast made his first appearance in the top ten, moving up from twelfth to tenth.
The fastest riser in the GPI 300, according to the GPI’s “Swimming Upstream” list was Argentina’s Mario Lopez, who moved up 60 spots to 129th on the strength of a second place finish in one of the WSOP Europe events. On the flip side, the player who dropped the most was Jonathan Karamalikis, who fell from 200th to 271st.
There are nine new members of the GPI 300 this week (compared to last week, this is not necessarily their debuts): Fabrice Soulier, who went from out of the top 300 to 228th, Timothy Reilly, Asher Conniff, Alexander Roche, Jake Cody, Jonas Lauck, Dean Baranowski, Andrey Pateychuk, and Richard Kirsch. Accordingly, nine players had to drop out. They are Brian Roberts, Jyri Merivirta, Vojtech Ruzicka, Giacomo Fundaro, Griffin Paul, Matas Cimbolas, Andrea Dato, Andrey Konopelko, and Jonas Mackoff.
The GPI also has the GPI Player of the Year (POY) rankings. This list is similar to the overall GPI, except that it only counts results from this calendar year, there is no aging factor applied, and a player’s top 13 scores are counted.
Kaverman is second in the GPI POY race with 4,346.18 points, behind leader Anthony Zinno, who has 4,461.20. Zinno is benefiting largely from his amazing World Poker Tour run at the beginning of the year during which he won back-to-back titles at WPT Fallsview and WPT L.A. Poker Classic. He also had a great WSOP this summer, winning the Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller Event and reaching four other final tables.
Overall GPI Standings – October 21, 2015
1. Byron Kaverman – 4,257.36 pts
2. Jason Mercier – 4,200.22 pts
3. Anthony Zinno – 4,006.18 pts
4. Scott Seiver – 3,920.19 pts
5. Paul Volpe – 3,745.62 pts
6. Nicholas Petrangelo – 3,710.07 pts
7. Stephen Chidwick – 3,698.70 pts
8. Bryn Kenney – 3,614.90 pts
9. Mustapha Kanit – 3,585.76 pts
10. Brian Rast – 3,572.62 pts
GPI Player of the Year Standings – October 21, 2015
1. Anthony Zinno – 4,461.20 pts
2. Byron Kaverman – 4,346.18 pts
3. Nicholas Petrangelo – 4,130.02 pts
4. Dzmitry Urbanovich – 3,955.62 pts
5. Connor Drinan – 3,771.11 pts
6. Scott Seiver – 3,762.46 pts
7. Jason Mercier – 3,751.99 pts
8. Barry Hutter – 3,681.94 pts
9. Paul Volpe – 3,651.76 pts
10. Thomas Marchese – 3,634.75 pts
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