The Global Poker Index (GPI) is a leaderboard index that ranks over 450,000 live tournament
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
players in the world. The GPI poker rankings are updated on a weekly basis. Players’ performances are assessed by their finishing positions in
poker tournaments
A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table (called a " heads-up" tournament), and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of tabl ...
occurring over six periods of six months (3 years).
The Global Poker Index uses data from the biggest poker database
The Hendon Mob
The Hendon Mob are a group of four professional poker players from London, England: Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman, Ross Boatman, and Ram Vaswani.
The name of the group was first publicised by the ''Evening Standard'' newspaper in September 2000. J ...
, known for collecting results of tournaments around the world and for being the reference in tournament results. They currently host results for over 325,000
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
tournaments.
The index is used in famous newspapers along with sports results to communicate poker rankings, both on the online and print version.
History
The Global Poker Index was originally created by Federated Sports + Gaming, along with the
Epic Poker League
The Epic Poker League was a series of poker tournaments which took place in 2011, organised by Federated Sports + Gaming. Former World Series of Poker commissioner Jeffrey Pollack served as Executive Chairman, professional poker player Annie Duke ...
(EPL), with Former World Series of Poker (
WSOP
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...
) commissioner
Jeffrey Pollack acting as the executive chairman, professional poker player
Annie Duke
Anne LaBarr Duke (née Lederer; born September 13, 1965) is an American former professional poker player and author in cognitive-behavioral decision science and decision education. She holds a World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet from 2004 ...
as commissioner, and
Matt Savage as the League's tournament director. The GPI was employed to rank players for the EPL and decide which players could take part in the League. On 29 February 2012, when Federated Sports + Gaming announced that they had filed for Bankruptcy, all of the organizations and all the brands were acquired by
Pinnacle Entertainment
Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. was an American gambling and hospitality company. It was acquired by Penn National Gaming in 2018. At the time of acquisition, it operated sixteen casino properties, located in Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missi ...
, Inc., at a bankruptcy auction in June 2012.
Following this acquisition, Zokay Entertainment and the company's CEO, Alexandre Dreyfus acquired the GPI brand, along with its patent-pending formula, in order to create a single, unified ranking platform covering the live tournament poker world in its entirety.
The GPI ranking system
The GPI tracks players' results for their prior 3 years of play, in qualifying tournaments with 32 or more entrants (specialty events and freerolls are not counted), using a patent-pending formula that takes into account result ages, field difficulties, and field sizes to generate live tournament player rankings.
For each qualifying tournament a player finishes in-the-money they receive a GPI score. Those scores fall into one of six time periods, each of which covers a half-year based on the starting date of the tournament. These are called GPI Aging Periods. The sum of the player's largest five (5) scores for each of the two Aging Periods in the most recent year and their four (4) largest scores for the four Aging Periods prior to that is their total GPI score.
GPI scores themselves are calculated by multiplying a Buy-in Factor, Finishing Factor, and Aging Factor.
The Buy-in Factor is the GPI's measure of relative difficulty, presuming larger buy-ins draw a more skilled field. Its median is calculated by dividing the USD equivalent of a $1,000 buy-in (fee included) by 1,000. This results in a Buy-in Factor of 1.0 for a $1,000 tournament, with Buy-in Factors being larger or smaller than 1.0 depending on whether the buy-in is larger or smaller than $1,000. This calculation uses a logarithmic function. It does so because the incremental increase in the skill set of the field theoretically diminishes as the buy-in amount increases. For example, in the GPI formula the percentage increase of GPI's Buy-In Factor between a $1500 event and an $2000 event is much greater than its percentage increase between $19,500 and a $20,000 buy-in events. Furthermore, all tournaments with a buy-in larger than $20,000 are treated as though the buy-in was only $20,000 and all tournaments with a buy-in smaller than $400 are treated as though the buy-in was $400.
The GPI also includes a Finishing Factor, which measures how players perform relative to the rest of the field they compete within in any given poker tournament. This Finishing Factor is calculated initially by dividing the field size by the player's finishing position and is also done using a logarithmic function. Furthermore, for any tournaments with a field size larger than 2,700 players will be treated as though their field was only 2,700. The GPI also employs an Aging Factor to player results. This is a multiplier that gives more points to tournaments based on how recently they were played in order to reward players both for recent success and consistency over time. Each Aging Period consists of 6 month periods of time, with the most recent being the previous 6 months from the present, and going backwards from there through to a point 3 years in the past. Each Aging Period has a different multiplier that is applied to score calculations, with multipliers decreasing as each Aging Period becomes less recent.
National and regional rankings
The Global Poker Index National Rankings ranks players by Country, with 20 different national rankings are currently available, by North American, Latin American, European, and Asian regions as well. The GPI is used as a central reference point when ranking live tournament poker players including France,
Italy,
Spain, Brazil, Latin America
and the USA.
Poker team rankings
The GPI create rankings of players comprising professional poker teams to show which teams’ players have the best overall results. Ranked teams include
PokerStars
PokerStars is an online poker cardroom that was a part of The Stars Group until it was sold to Flutter Entertainment on May 5, 2020. It can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It is the large ...
, Winamax and
Party Poker
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...
.
Former Number Ones
*
Jason Mercier
Jason Mercier (born November 12, 1986) is an American professional poker player from Hollywood, Florida. He has won five World Series of Poker bracelets and one European Poker Tour title. Mercier is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and was named ...
*
Bertrand Grospellier
Bertrand Grospellier (; born 8 February 1981 in Melun), also known as ElkY , is a French poker player and former '' StarCraft: Brood War'' and ''Warcraft III'' esports player. He has won a World Poker Tour (WPT), a World Series of Poker (WSOP ...
*
Erik Seidel
Erik Seidel (born November 6, 1959) is an American professional poker player from Las Vegas, Nevada, who has won nine World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title. In 2010, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Early lif ...
*
Dan Smith
*
Marvin Rettenmaier
Marvin Rettenmaier (born 1986), is a professional poker player, originally from Leonberg, Germany.
Poker career
Rettenmaier first appeared on the poker radar in December 2009, when he finished runner-up to Payman Mahourvand in the Main Even ...
*
Ole Schemion
*
Daniel Negreanu
Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker Ind ...
*
Vanessa Selbst
*
Scott Seiver
Scott Seiver (born April 14, 1985 in Columbus, Ohio) is a professional poker player from Cold Spring Harbor, New York, now residing in Las Vegas, Nevada who won the 2008 World Series of Poker $5,000 No Limit Hold'em event and is the winner of t ...
*
Anthony Zinno
Anthony Zinno (born 1981) is a professional poker player from Cranston, Rhode Island. He has won three World Poker Tour (WPT) titles and four World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.
Zinno earned a degree in chemical engineering from Worcester P ...
*
Byron Kaverman
Byron Kaverman (born 1987) is an American professional poker player from Fort Jennings, Ohio.
Poker career
Kaverman began playing poker in 2004 and first cashed in live tournament in 2008. He first cashed in the WSOP in 2008 finishing 37th in ...
*
Steve O'Dwyer
*
Fedor Holz
Fedor Holz (born 25 July 1993) is a German professional poker player, originally from Saarbrücken, who focuses on high roller tournaments. He was ranked by Pocketfives.com as the best online MTT player in 2014 and 2015. In July 2016, Holz w ...
*
David Peters
*
Nick Petrangelo
Nick Petrangelo (born January 2, 1987) is an American professional poker player from Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. He has won two World Series of Poker bracelets.
Poker career
Petrangelo plays online under the nickname caecilius. In December 2 ...
*
Bryn Kenney
Bryn Kenney (born November 1, 1986) is an American professional poker player from Long Beach, New York.
Poker career
Kenney played '' Magic: The Gathering'' competitively before transitioning to poker. His first live cash was in 2007 at the Eas ...
*
Adrián Mateos
Adrián Mateos Díaz (born 1 July 1994) is a Spanish professional poker player.
At the age of 19, he won the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event for €1,000,000. He also won an event on the Estrellas Poker Tour in Madrid in January 20 ...
*
Stephen Chidwick
Stephen James Chidwick (born 10 May 1989) is an English professional poker player from Deal, Kent. Chidwick led the Global Poker Index (GPI) from April 18 to October 9, 2018.
Poker
Chidwick began playing live poker tournaments in 2008. He pla ...
*
Alex Foxen
William Alex Foxen (born February 1, 1991) is an American poker player from Huntington, New York.
Foxen attended Boston College, where he played tight end on the school's football team. In 2012, at the age of 21, he won the first World Series ...
GPI Player Of the Year
The GPI Player Of the Year (POY) award is given to the player topping GPI's Player of the Year Leaderboard at the end of each calendar year. Standings are updated weekly with the top 1,000 contenders ranked according to results, with the Leaderboard utilizing an augmented version of GPI's existing ranking formula which disregards aging factors and includes 11 total results from qualifying tournament results in each given year (top 6 results from the first 6 months of the year and top 5 results from these 6 months of each year). Buy in restrictions, minimum player field restrictions are kept as-is, as
* POY 2012 :
Dan Smith
* POY 2013 :
Ole Schemion
* POY 2014 :
Daniel Colman
* POY 2015 :
Byron Kaverman
Byron Kaverman (born 1987) is an American professional poker player from Fort Jennings, Ohio.
Poker career
Kaverman began playing poker in 2004 and first cashed in live tournament in 2008. He first cashed in the WSOP in 2008 finishing 37th in ...
* POY 2016 :
David Peters
* POY 2017 :
Adrián Mateos
Adrián Mateos Díaz (born 1 July 1994) is a Spanish professional poker player.
At the age of 19, he won the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event for €1,000,000. He also won an event on the Estrellas Poker Tour in Madrid in January 20 ...
* POY 2018 :
Alex Foxen
William Alex Foxen (born February 1, 1991) is an American poker player from Huntington, New York.
Foxen attended Boston College, where he played tight end on the school's football team. In 2012, at the age of 21, he won the first World Series ...
* POY 2019 :
Alex Foxen
William Alex Foxen (born February 1, 1991) is an American poker player from Huntington, New York.
Foxen attended Boston College, where he played tight end on the school's football team. In 2012, at the age of 21, he won the first World Series ...
Global poker masters
The Global Poker Index aggregates the Top 300 performing players in the world and groups them by nationality to create GPI Country Rankings to show how many top players hail from specific nations. Currently the US is the world's top performing country in terms of live tournament player results, with over 50% of all Top 300 GPI ranked players being American.
Using the country rankings, the Global Poker Masters will be a world cup of poker, gathering the best players from 9 countries around the world, in order to decide which country is the best.
Awards
The Global Poker Index is the host of the European Poker Awards. The GPI EPA takes place every year in January and rewards the best European Poker Players and newcomers, as well as the people involved in the industry.
Starting in 2015, the American Poker Awards took placee in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, USA, and rewarded the best live poker players in America, as well as the biggest contributors in the industry.
Fantasy poker manager
The Global Poker Index released the first ever Fantasy Poker game allowing poker fans to draft for free their favorite players for the biggest poker tournaments in the world. The game quickly became the official game of the
World Poker Tour
The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the fi ...
and the
World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...
The game consists in drafting 10 poker players with a defined virtual budget, following the concept of
fantasy sports
A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete bas ...
in general.
GPI Magazine
GPI launched its first print publication during the 2014
World Series of Poker
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pla ...
where the magazine was distributed for free in the
Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino
The Rio is a hotel and casino near the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States. It is owned by Dreamscape Companies LLC and operated by Caesars Entertainment. It includes a casino and 2,520 suites. It features a Brazilian theme based ...
, as well as in other places in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
. The 56 page first edition saw the poker pro
Vanessa Selbst making the cover, and featured numerous people from the industry.
References
External links
GlobalPokerIndex.comGlobal Poker Index DefinitionEuropean Poker Awards websiteAmerican Poker Awards websiteThe 1st GPI magazine
{{Major poker tournaments
Poker companies