January 19 2012, Mickey Doft

Each week, the Global Poker Index releases a list of the top 300 tournament poker players in the world using a formula that takes a player’s results over six half-year periods. The 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure made major waves across the GPI the last two weeks with several players kicking off 2012 in style. For a look at the entire list of 300, visit the official GPI website.

The Top 10 as of January 16, 2012

Erik Seidel overtook Jason Mercier for the top spot on the GPI thanks to results from the 2011 PCA that matured into Period 3. With no results in Period 3 prior to this week, Seidel is now reaping the benefits of the GPI scoring system as his amazing first half of 2011 is being recognized in the point standings.

Sitting just outside the top 10 in the No. 11 spot is Jonathan Duhamel. After rising 30 places last week following his fourth place finish in the $100,000 No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller Event for $313,600, Duhamel added three more final tables and roughly $900,000 in earnings to his 2012 resume. He moved up 41 places this week and with no major results due to expire in the next few weeks, there’s a good chance he can crack the top ten.

Welcome to the GPI

A whopping 27 players are new to the GPI this week. Russia’s Leonid Bilokur landed at No. 97 after he collected $1,134,930 for his win in the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max High Roller. Jon Turner cashed three times at the PCA to return to the list, and Faraz Jaka’s third place finish in the Main Event boosted him back into the rankings after a one week absence.

New Additions

Who’s off the GPI this week? Well, a lot of folks: Alex Debus, Allen Cunningham, Amnon Filippi, Andrew Robl, Brandon Cantu, Daniel Reijmer, David Ulliott, Erick Lindgren, Fabrizio Gonzalez, Gregory Brooks, Humberto Brenes, Jan Bendik, Jared Jaffee, Joe Hachem, John Andress, Joe Serock, Nenad Medic, Nicolas Cardyn, Nikolay Evdakov, Ognjen Sekularac, Paul Berende, Phil Laak, Praz Bansi, Richard Ashby, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Ted Forrest, and Ville Haavisto.

Ups and Downs

The biggest rise of the week belonged to Andrew Chen, who climbed 119 spots to No. 96. Two of his three PCA cashes count toward the GPI, including a runner-up showing in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em 6-Max High-Roller tournament worth $191,984.

Isaac Haxton (up 94 places) and Nicolas Fierro (up 103 places) rode top five finishes in the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max High Roller up the GPI as well. Scott Seiver (up 81 places), who was in the top ten as recently as November, made a nice move back up the ranks with a chop in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship worth $78,210.

Biggest Gains

Will Molson took the biggest hit this week. For the first time in four years, Molson did not finish in the top two of the $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max High Roller. With his win from 2011 falling into Period 3 and his runner-up showing in 2010 falling into Period 5, Molson tumbled 165 spots in the GPI.

Biggest Drops

What’s In Store?

The 2012 Aussie Millions is under way and will undoubtedly be causing movement in the GPI over the next two weeks. However, that means the 2011 Aussie Millions will carry into Period 3.

That will cause serious damage to the scores of Erik Seidel and Sam Trickett. Seidel’s third-place finish in the AUD$100,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament last January will mature into Period 3, perhaps opening the door once again for Jason Mercier to sit atop the GPI.

Trickett, the winner of that tournament, may find himself outside of the top 10. To make matters worse for both, the AUD$250,000 Super High-Roller No-Limit Hold’em, in which Seidel defeated Trickett heads-up, is due to fall into Period 3 in two weeks. As a result, both can expect a rare GPI slide.

To look at the entire list of 300, visit the official GPI website. While you’re at it, follow the GPI on Twitter and its Facebook page.

To stay on top of the GPI and other happenings in the poker world, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

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January 15 2012, Mickey Doft

The 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller wrapped up Saturday night with Leonid Bilokur topping a field of 148 to capture the title. Bilokur began the final table fourth in chips and stayed out of the way in the early stages while players began to drop.

Team PokerStars Online member Randy “nanonoko” Lew entered the final table on the short stack and despite doubling up twice, he was the first to fall. He picked up in the cutoff and watched as Nicolas Fierro and Jason Koon both re-raised behind him. Unfortunately for Lew, Koon held and quickly called Lew’s five-bet shove. Lew found some help as the flop and turn left him with outs to a flush, but the river ended his tournament.

Michael Telker appeared to be quite card dead during his time at the final table, but found a good spot to shove after the aggressive Fierro opened a pot. Telker, with , shoved from the small blind. Fierro called with and eliminated Telker when the board ran out . Govert Metaal, last year’s fifth-place finisher in this very tournament, busted in sixth place this time around. His ran into Fierro’s and did not improve.

Going into the dinner break, Bilokur commanded a sizable chip lead after winning a big coin flip against Koon. They were the two biggest stacks at the time and tangled in a huge pot. Bilokur four-bet jammed his 53-big-blind stack with into Koon’s . A call from Koon delivered a board to give Bilokur the chip lead.

When the players returned from dinner break, Fierro busted in fifth place when his pocket deuces failed to improve against Isaac Haxton’s pocket tens. Koon followed him out the door shortly thereafter, five-bet shoving into Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel’s . No help arrived for Koon, and he was eliminated in fourth place.

Haxton fell short of heads-up play, getting his stack into the middle with after four-bet shoving against Duhamel. With , Duhamel called and held through the board.

Heads-up play began with Duhamel holding 5,430,000 in chips to Bilokur’s 1,960,000, but the duel was pretty one sided as Bilokur battled back to take the lead and eventually go on to win the tournament. The final hand saw Duhamel three-bet shove with against Bilokur who called with .

An flop all but ended Duhamel’s chances to catch up in the hand, with the turn officially leaving Duhamel drawing dead. For good measure, Bilokur improved to a full house as the landed on the river, and he earned $1,134,930 for his victory.

Final Table Payouts

Although PokerNews’ coverage of the 2012 PCA has concluded, you can be sure to check back to our Live Reporting pages because we’ll be at plenty of tournament stops across the globe just about every week.

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