Determining who the best poker players in the world are can often be subjective. Unlike sports like tennis, football or darts, where it’s clear who the best team or player is over a season, it's a little trickier in the poker world.
This is partly down to the luck factor involved - a player with zero poker experience could hypothetically be the most winning player over a year. It’s also down to the fact that the highest level of poker doesn’t necessarily involve the best players, but rather just the wealthiest people who can afford to play at the highest stakes.
The Global Poker Index (GPI) uses a specific formula to rate and subsequently rank poker players across the world in the GPI Rankings.
The Global Poker Index (GPI) is a system for ranking the world’s best poker players. Players are ranked weekly based on their performance by finishing in cash positions in qualifying tournaments over the previous 36-month period. Qualifying tournaments are events with 32 or more players, a buy-in for at least $1, and open to the public. Selected audience events, such as women or seniors, are excluded from the list.
How are the Global Poker Index Rankings calculated?
The GPI Rankings are calculated using a weighted formula that takes into account tournament results over the past three years, attributing more value to the most recent results. The best five results in a six-month period are taken for a total of the previous 18 months. For the next 18 months, the best four results are taken in each six-month period.
A weighting is applied, giving more relevance to the most recent results. A buy-in factor also comes into play, ensuring the higher buy-in results don’t skew rankings. Any tournament between $1 and $20,000 is taken into account. Results from any tournament with a larger buy-in will still count towards the rankings, but the score taken from it will be capped as if it was a $20,000 tournament.
The 300 players with the top score after all of these factors then make up the GPI Rankings for that week.
Who is the best poker player in the world?
This is mainly subjective, and with the GPI Rankings changing each week, it’s difficult to pinpoint one player who people can unanimously agree is the best.
The 2023 Player of the Year, according to the GPI rankings, was Bin Weng. After a string of high-profile tournament victories that year, it’s difficult to argue with this result. Daniel Negreanu and Jason Koon were other notable names in the top 15.
In 2024, David Coleman was named GPI Player of the Year after moving past Jesse Lonis, who had occupied the top spot for most of the year. Meanwhile, Cherish Andrews once again won Female Player of the Year and Han Feng earned the distinction of Mid-Major Player of the Year.
Cherish Andrews & David Coleman
Other previous GPI Player of the Year Winners include Stephen Song, Ali Imsirovic, Alex Foxen and Adrian Mateos.
However, away from the GPI Rankings, many people would agree that certain players are, and have been, at the top of the game for years. While they might not have the best recent results, nor be as active as they once were, the likes of Negreanu, Phil Ivey and Erik Seidel will always come up in the conversation due to their sheer presence at the very top of the game for so long.
Phil Ivey
Global Poker Index FAQs
Is the Global poker Index accurate?
While there will always be disagreement over how rankings in poker are formulated, it’s generally accepted that the GPI Rankings provide some of the most accurate results for who the current best poker players are in the world.
Which players do the GPI Rankings cover?
The GPI Rankings cover any player that’s involved in one of the qualifying tournaments that fall under the GPI criteria. With the lower limit of tournament buy-ins $1, the result of anyone playing a tournament at that buy-in will be taken into account, but it’s unlikely that micro-stakes players will feature in the top 300 rankings due to the buy-in weighting factor.
Who makes the GPI Rankings?
The GPI Rankings were created by the Global Poker Index. Founded in 2011, the index accumulates recent poker results and gives them a weighting based on the buy-in and how recently they were played. What’s left is a ranking of the best poker players.
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