The Global Poker Index, a ranking of live tournament poker pokers that is updated weekly, will be powering the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Player of the Year award this season. GPI’s Fantasy Poker Manager tool will also be integrated into the WPT’s main website. In an announcement made jointly by the WPT and the Global Poker Index (GPI), the two poker giants said that the Season XIII WPT Player of the Year race will take into account not just WPT Main Tour Events, but WPT500, WPTDeepStacks, and WPT National Events as well.
Better Algorithms, Better Standings
The Global Poker Index is widely recognized as being one of the fairest and most advanced of all poker player ranking algorithms in the industry. The GPI streamlines live tournament rankings by creating one universal system to chain every event from every tour together. Points on the GPI formula take into account the buy-in, field size, and finish for each player in tournaments they participate in.
While announcing their relationship with the WPT, the team from the Global Poker Index also stated that they will integrate their Fantasy Poker Manager into WPT.com, allowing fantasy poker players to enjoy a deeper experience with the World Poker Tour. Many in the industry have felt that the GPI was the best of all the Player of the Year standings sites, but the new relationship with the WPT might make it the definitive one.
World Poker Tour and GPI Bosses Speak
WPt President Adam Pilska stated in a press release, “I applaud Alexandre Dreyfus and the Global Poker Index for taking positive steps to professionalize the sport. The GPI ranking system will allow more WPT players, regardless of the WPT offering they choose, to participate in the Season XIII Player of the Year race and provide better indicators for players throughout the entire season.”
GPI CEO Alexandre Dreyfus, in the same press release, stated that he was thrilled to expand his company’s relationship with the World Poker Tour and help promote the popular poker entity. He also went on to say that the popularity of fantasy sports games in the United States correlates with the popularity of those sports, and believes that the same relationship can exist for poker.
“Our Fantasy Poker Manager advocates engagement from both hardcore and casual fans of the game,” Dreyfus said.
More About the Global Poker Index
The Global Poker Index is a ranking of live tournament poker players from around the world. Rankings are updated on a weekly basis based on performances in qualifying live tournaments. The algorithm takes into account the last 36 months and each player’s individual GPI score is an aggregate of scores in events over that period of time. The GPI limits results to five results per six months for the most recent year and four results per six months for the two previous years, for a maximum total of 26 scores per 36 month aggregation period.
Currently the top five players in the world, in order, are Ole Schemion, Dan Smith, Daniel Negreanu, Scott Seiver, and Byron Kaverman. Other notables in the Top 20 include Jason Mercier (6th), Erik Seidel (8th), Jonathan Duhamel (15th), Vanessa Selbst (16th), and Sorel Mizzi (20th). Other rankings include Phil Ivey (245th) and Phil Hellmuth (122nd). Mark Newhouse, who has made back-to-back WSOP Main Event final tables, ranks at 702nd in the index.
About Fantasy Poker Manager
Players can interact with the Fantasy Poker Manger to create their own World Poker Tour roster of players and compete against others during every WPT Main Event, including the upcoming WPT Legends of Poker tournament series. The game allows players to draft real poker pros playing in real events as a “virtual poker team” with 10 poker pros on each team. Users can add and drop players between events.
Once the next event begins, a team will accumulate points and be compared to other teams in the system to see who can put together the best set of poker pros.
