Global Poker Index, is a consolidated system of poker rankings which has made the maximum efforts to deal with flaws and craft a nearly accurate snapshot of who the top 300 finest tournament poker players in the world presently are. GPI Rankings rank the top 300 tournament poker players of the world and does a very good job of it.
- Eligibility
Every poker player is eligible to rank for GPI, however not every poker tournament is. It is mandatory for the poker tournament to have a buy-in of a minimum $USD1000 for the finish to be considered for the GPI and also include at least 21 entrants. Furthermore, the poker tournament ought to be open to the general public with no restrictions on entry on the basis of sex or age or be a “specialty” tournament i.e. a charity or satellite tournament.
- How these Points are calculated
Much like every other ranking system, your finishing place is the biggest factor in how many GPI points you accrue for a given tournament. It’s how the GPI weights and limits this factor that I think sets it apart. They seem to have given the problems that normally haunt ranking systems some serious thought, and come up with a few simple, yet elegant, solutions:
- Limited Entries
The major glitch in almost every most poker ranking system is that the high volume players have a huge advantage over low volume players. A poker player who participates in seventy events in a half a year cashing 6 times can show a massive loss and still succeed in ranking higher than a much better poker player who played about eleven times and cashed eight of them for an immense profit. To combat this situation, the GPI instead confines the number of entries you get to your top 5 in a six-month period for the current year, and just 4 for six-month periods in previous years.
- Percentage of the Field
The GPI ranking computes your tournament finish as a percentage of the field, so a third position in a big field is more significant than third place in a small field. However, to restrict huge field finishes from tipping the scale excessively the GPI often sets a definite field cap on their calculations, thereby meeting annually to settle on the field cap for that particular year. The field cap for the current year 2013 is 2800.
- The Buy-in
The buy-in factor is also included in the calculation for GPI ranking majorly because of the reason that the higher buy-ins is often tougher in comparison to the lower buy-ins. But the GPI makes use of a logarithm to explain that the skill difference between a 1k and a 5k is extremely large in contrast to the skill difference between a 20k and a 25k. They also utilize a cap similar to the way they execute on the field.
- Time Factor
The Global Poker Index is a continuing three-year index in which the latest cashes is felicitated with higher weight age. This helps it to track the finest poker player who is currently playing.
- Club it all together
Despite the complication of the logarithmic calculation of limiting and calculating finishes, the buy-in, and aging the results, the concluding calculation is quite uncomplicated and easy: multiply the Buy-In Factor with the Aging Factor and the Finishing Percentage Factor to get the GPI score for that particular event. An addition of these event scores gives you the poker player’s GPI score.
- The Leaders
Marvin Rettenmaier, Jason Mercier, Daniel Negreanu and Philip Gruissem are some of the names who have seen the top spots of the GPI Rankings on a regular basis this year.